From first sight
by mak5258
Summary: The marriage law trope with a twist: SSHG involved in a would-be scandalous relationship kept secret for decades, only to be exposed with the enactment of a marriage law. (An experiment in non-linear storytelling.) Rated for a bit of smut and some foul language.
1. from Romanov's Ways of the Heart

_The concept of a "soul mate" is, of course, absurd. The term implies not only romantic inclination but also a relationship binding in nature. A mating. Better to use the term "affinity," though it lacks the proper scope._

 _In this text, I will refer to the couples in question as "soul pairs" merely as the most expedient term, removing the demarcation of "mates" as an inappropriate locution. I would like to make it perfectly plain at this juncture—and will further illustrate throughout the text—that a soul pairing means a connection, an affinity, a match. In short,_ potential _. There is no evidence—magical or physical—that a soul pair is anything more…_

* * *

A/N: Hello hello! This is sort of an odd story. I say that because it's more-or-less completely written already, and... well, it's sort of an odd story. Not the plotline itself so much as the way I'm trying to tell it to you. That "experiment in non-linear storytelling" bit isn't just me being odd. None of this is in proper chronological order.

If you get desperately, horribly lost, feel free to PM me. I can't guarantee I'll have an answer for you (because _some_ things have to remain a mystery for, you know, dramatic tension), but I'll point you in the right direction if I can without ruining it.

And, most importantly, enormous thanks to Toby and Nocturnus for the time and brainpower you put into this fic; it truly would not be here without you!

—M


	2. Simon, November 2019

Simon stared at his shoes. He was in Trouble, capital "t." Shortly, he'd go from Trouble to deep shit. He'd been caught dueling in the hallway when he was supposed to be at lunch, and he supposed it was that simple to the headmistress. She'd had him up to her office in a trice, and she'd sent an owl to his parents. They'd be here any minute. (Hence the upgrade from Trouble to deep shit.)

The toe on his right shoe was a bit scuffed. He'd have to look up the charm to fix that before he went home at Christmas or Dad would be all over him about taking care of his things. For the time being, Simon tucked one foot behind the other, tipping the scuffed toe into the carpet.

A glance up showed the headmistress was still watching him, her expression blank. He fought to keep him hands in his lap as they had been, elbows on the arm rests of the spindly chair. Back straight, chin up. All these things his parents had taught him about facing off with enemies, or authority figures, or basically anything unpleasant.

"Stand up straight, Simon," his father had murmured time and time again. "Only old men are allowed to stoop, and only petulant little boys slouch."

Simon had never fancied himself a petulant little boy, so he'd allowed himself to be trained out of slouching.

"Chin up, Simon," his mother always said, a finger under his chin to make up look at her. "Never let them know they got to you; they'll keep trying, and you'll learn something about them from it."

She'd been right about that, too. First year, a group of third years had decided to make him their daily target for pranks and bullying. He'd kept his chin up, laughed off some of it and ignored the rest. After a week, they'd gotten tired of his non-reaction and left him alone. He'd been able to step in when they went after other kids, too; literally standing between them and their target, just looking at them until they went away. He'd written home to tell her about it.

Simon almost sighed, but held it in. He was a sixth-year Prefect of Ravenclaw House. Wit Beyond Measure and all that. One of the Prefects, maybe his third or fourth year, had told him that the House motto also meant that they should be clever enough not to get caught when they _did_ get up to mischief. Dueling in the corridors and pilfering from the kitchens was for Gryffindors and Slytherins. Since his mother had been a Gryffindor and his father had been a Slytherin, he had felt quite superior not to get caught… until he'd been caught. And as a Prefect, no less.

"Headmistress," Professor Flitwick said, the door snicking shut behind him. Simon felt his cheeks warm all over again—she'd called his Head of House. His parents _and_ his Head of House meeting with the _Headmistress_. "Mr. Prince."

"Sir," Simon said miserably, staring down at the blotter on the headmistress's desk. He wanted to fidget, check his tie and cuffs, have a go at that scuffed shoe. He knew he was rumpled from the duel (though he'd at least been able to get rid of the blue tinge to his skin on the way up to the office, which made it slightly less obvious what he'd been up to).

Flitwick normally would have patted his elbow or something comforting like that, but not today. Today, the diminutive wizard conjured a chair next to the big desk and took a seat, eyes serious. Simon glanced away from the eye contact quickly.

"Your father will be here directly, Mr. Prince," the headmistress said, setting aside the letter she'd been reading. Simon tried not to frown. "He's been called not to punish you further, but because it is important that he be involved in our conversation."

"Is my mum coming, too?" Simon caught himself rubbing the scuffed toe of his shoe into the rug and stopped.

"No. I believe she was unable to get away from her work."

Again, Simon had to hold back a sigh. This time it was a relieved sigh, though. While both his parents had quick tempers, Dad was more likely to agree with the reasoning behind his behavior. Mum would tell him he really shouldn't be dueling in the halls, whatever the reason, and that was that. Well, maybe should would agree with the reasoning. It was just that she felt people had to own up to their actions, accept punishments when the action they were being punished for had been just. Dad tended to say that karma would balance itself out. (And then Mum would say that a person being punished for doing wrong was karma in action. It was a well-worn argument, a comfortable, friendly sort of ethical debate.)

The Floo rushed behind him, and Simon ducked his head to stare down at his lap. His father's boots were nearly soundless on the rugs, but Simon could _feel_ him walk across the room. He was a powerful wizard, and his magic was palpable, especially when Simon had lived in close quarters to it for the first eleven years of his life. It was a comforting thing, even now.

To Simon's surprise, Professor Flitwick squeaked—actually _squeaked_ —and jumped out of his chair. Every fiber of his Head of House's being was taut and alert, his hands balled up in to tight fists. Even the portrait behind the desk—old Albus Dumbledore all done up in absurd purple robes and a pointed hat with glimmering moons and stars on it—had dropped his painted tea into its lap.

Simon glanced at his father only long enough to see the stretched lips that wanted to scowl, and looked back down at his lap. "Chin up" or not, he couldn't quite muster it.

He'd stumbled onto the secret of his parents when he'd been a fourth year. He'd been in the library, flipping mindlessly through _Hogwarts: A History_ on a rainy Saturday. It was the Hogwarts edition, with more detail than any other edition, fully illuminated, and with both illustrations and photographs, updated every decade or as-needed based on events. He'd always loved the illustrations of the Founders, the silhouettes of the four of them standing against the backdrop of the Great Hall's enchanted ceiling rendered hours after the ceiling had been enchanted. He'd flipped to the back that day, though, for no particular reason.

His father had been scowling out at him. A younger, leaner picture of his father. No threads of iron-gray at his temples, no hint of the laugh lines around his eyes. He had his own chapter. It listed the dates he'd been a student, the dates he'd been a teacher, and the year he'd been headmaster. Simon had known that his father used to teach at Hogwarts, and he'd known his father's name was Severus Snape (even though he went by Tobias Prince). He'd even known that he'd been a spy during the war (and that it was why the family went by Prince instead of Snape—the press had been awful following the war, not to mention people coming out of the woodwork to gape at the Death Eater spy). He hadn't known _who_ his father was, had been, though.

Simon had read the chapter through, and come to the next chapter and found a picture of his mother there. She was a teenager in the photo, wearing all-black dress robes for a funeral, standing with her Auror friends from school. He'd known the three of them and most of their other friends had been involved in the war, but they'd failed to mention that Mr. Potter had been the Chosen One, the one to kill the Dark Lord Voldemort. Or that he, Mr. Weasley, and Simon's mum had been outlaws (there were wanted posters—his mum had been Undesirable Number Two with a staggeringly high reward posted for her capture).

He'd heard about the Dark Year in History of Magic and a bit from his parents. He'd heard about Battle of Hogwarts in History of Magic. They'd been involved, he'd known that much. That Headmaster Severus Snape had almost been killed in the fight, that his mother had almost been killed as well had been a surprise. That they'd both been involved in rebuilding the castle after the Battle had been a surprise.

Some part of him had known that his mum had been his dad's student. He just hadn't done the math, hadn't thought to do the math. She'd been nineteen when the Battle of Hogwarts took place. She'd returned to Hogwarts for her seventh year studies and taken her N.E.W.T.s, and she'd been his father's apprentice.

Simon had always been clever, and reading those official histories had sent claxons going off in his head. The official story was that his parents had had a very professional student-teacher relationship, gone their separate ways after her apprenticeship, and nobody had really heard from them since. Hermione Granger (because she'd always used her maiden name professionally) worked for the Ministry as an Unspeakable doing research that mostly went right over Simon's head. Severus Snape had disappeared into obscurity, popping up in academic journals occasionally; Tobias Prince owned a flourishing apothecary and potion shop (the Cauldron and Kettle). Simon and his sister had been born and raised in the large flat above the shop.

At fourteen, almost fifteen, he'd been able to see a few things, a few secrets, between the assumptions in the book and the things he knew about his family. He'd been born in February. Nine months before that, his mother had still been his father's apprentice. She'd been of age, but… If anybody knew, if anybody realized—her Potions Mastery would be reevaluated by the Guild of Potioneers, all her research and the studies that had followed would be looked into, and she'd be called all sorts of nasty things in the papers. And his father would be labeled a lecher, at best. There would be investigations into his interactions with every student he'd ever had, and he'd had quite a few now that Simon had seen the listing in _Hogwarts: A History_.

The secrets—never quite secrets, just ways of doing things that had never seemed to have a good reason—suddenly made sense. His father's name was Severus Tobias Prince Snape, so why shouldn't he choose to go by Tobias Prince to the public and on paper if calling himself Severus Snape involved newspapermen hanging around trying to get him to talk about Lily Potter? (And Simon didn't know a thing about that, but it seemed awfully ridiculous to him since his father certainly didn't seem to be pining for some witch other than his wife.) The way his parents never held hands or went out on dates in the wizarding community. The way it was only ever Mum that brought them to Diagon Alley, and the way they always went during the quiet hours.

Simon had read the last chapters of the Hogwarts edition through six times, trying to find alternative explanations, trying to make the math _not_ fall out the way it did. Then he'd written home and informed his parents that they would be getting a room at the Three Broomsticks on the next Hogsmeade weekend, and Simon and Stella would be meeting them there. He hadn't explained why or what they'd be talking about to Stella. He'd planned out what he was going to say to them, he'd planned to be calm and collected and not shout.

He had shouted. He'd felt slighted and lied to. His whole life, he'd thought his parents had loved him, but they'd been hiding the whole time! Whenever they'd been out in public, they'd always been subtly disguised so that nobody would recognize that Severus Snape and Hermione Granger loved each other and had children together. Obviously, their children weren't worth telling the world about, weren't worth—

He'd never made it further than that. His mum had started crying, and his dad had started talking very quietly and very quickly. (That was the most dangerous—Dad snarling was not unusual; Dad quiet and low and angry…)

"I'm proud of both of you," Dad had said. "I'm glad you're mine. The rest of the world won't see any of that, won't care about it. They'll see the scandal of it and that's all. It's all you'd hear about at school. We didn't want that for you. We agreed before you were even born, Simon, that we would keep things quiet until you'd finished school, both of you. We'd let you decide when you were ready for the word to come out that your parents…" And there he'd tailed off and looked very uncomfortable until Mum had touched his arm.

That hadn't been the end of it, of course. Simon had walked out, stomped his way around the village and back up to the castle. He'd gone to the library and read through those last chapters again. Stella had stayed and talked with their parents. She'd been thirteen, but she hadn't hit her stride so far as hormonal fury went yet; she'd listened to them. She'd thought it was romantic. It had taken her months to talk Simon around, constantly yanking him into empty classrooms to glare their father's glare at him and explain the reasoning over and over—his parents were more logical people than emotional, and Simon had trouble with that sometimes.

They'd come a long way in the past two years. Simon mostly just tried not to think of illicit student-teacher relationships, and told himself that it had been a different time, they'd been at war, emotions had been running high, and they'd found somebody they could rely on no matter what. It hadn't mattered that they were so far apart in age, or that the balance of power between them was so skewed. (It was ironic, Dad's technically having the power at the beginning—he deferred to Mum in _everything_ so far as Simon could tell.)

So now he'd really done it. He'd gotten in so much trouble that his parents had been called in. It was lucky that Mum had been at work, because otherwise they both would've had to come, and the cat would've been out of the bag. And it would've all been Simon's fault. Hell, even this little "reveal" was Simon's fault.

He would _not_ cry. He wouldn't.

"Severus," Professor McGonagall said, voice slightly strangled. Simon glanced up, wondering what was wrong. And it was odd to hear his dad referred to as Severus not Tobias. "Is something the matter? What's happened?"

Simon glanced back at his dad, biting his lip. He expected the worst. He expected a sneer, his hands spread wide.

"This one spilled the family secret, of course," he'd say. Or maybe something more scathing, like when one of the shop assistants did something particularly dumb after being given perfectly clear instructions not to.

Instead, Dad just raised an eyebrow. He took three quick steps across the room, and he looked at Simon. Something unclenched in Simon at that look—the warm, familiar eyes. He'd inherited them, as had Stella. The look was quick, and then Dad's focus was back on the teachers.

"You called me here," he said matter-of-factly. "You wanted to talk about my son, I believe."

 _My son_ , he'd said. He wasn't angry about being called in to the school and having the secret ruined. Time would only tell if he'd be mad about the oncoming conversation, but at least he wasn't mad about that.

Dad didn't wait to be invited to sit. Instead, he touched Simon under the chin with just one finger—Mum's "chin up" reminder—and sat in the spindly chair next to Simon. It struck Simon as an absurd thing to do, sitting in that chair. First of all, this had once been _his_ office; it was odd for him to sit in the guest chair. Second, it was such a frail-looking chair next to his father; surely it would wither and crack under the weight of his personality alone.

"You—your—" Professor McGonagall blinked several times and sat down again.

"But _you're_ not Tobias Prince!" Professor Flitwick said, brandishing the letter Professor McGonagall had been reading earlier. Simon couldn't decide if Professor Flitwick was glad to see Dad or not, the way he was still standing and still tense.

"These days I am," Dad said smoothly, shrugging. He'd been brewing for the apothecary, Simon saw. He wore his usual jeans and boots for the lab, and the charcoal-black frock coat Mum had gotten him for his birthday a couple years ago, spelled to keep off spills and bits of ingredients as well as to keep from absorbing the foul stenches produces by most brewing. His hair was pulled back into a knot at the back of his head, out of the way. If he hadn't been brewing, it would've been down because Mum preferred it that way. "Keeps the gawkers away. I work in the back of my shop, station a few assistants out front to deal with the people, and nobody is the wiser."

Silence reigned. It was even more awkward than the silence that had filled the room when it was just Simon and the headmistress sitting there and not saying anything.

"Do sit down, Filius," Dad said eventually, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Simon wondered if he was just annoyed or if he had a headache. He got migraines sometimes from things that had happened during the war, and he'd spend the afternoon in bed with a washcloth over his eyes, letting himself be miserable until Mum got home from work and brought him a potion. Simon had only seen it happen three or four times, but he got the impression from the way Mum frowned about it that it happened more than she wanted him to know.

Professor Flitwick cleared his throat and retook his seat, hands folding and refolding the note absently. Dad pretended not to notice, looking to the headmistress instead.

"So," he said when neither of the professors seemed to remember they'd been the ones to ask him to the castle, "what's Simon done that warranted parental intervention?"

Simon looked down to hide his smirk.

"He was dueling in the entrance hall during lunch," Professor McGonagall said, seeming to snap out of her surprise. Simon stared at her blotter again, not daring to look at his father because he knew the exact look being sent his way from that quarter and he'd rather not see it just now.

"Not hungry?" Dad asked, almost snidely. Simon's stomach, of course, chose that moment to rumble loudly. He'd missed lunch, and it was rapidly approaching dinnertime. Simon glanced up, and Dad was smirking again. "Well then. It must have been a matter of pride. Not much else would stick in your craw enough to make you forget lunch.

Simon felt himself blushing, but refused to look away. He jerked his chin up another inch, then glared when his father's eyes crinkled in amusement.

"Simon and Frank Parkinson were dueling during lunch. A point of honor, witnesses have told us," Professor Flitwick said. Simon looked down at his lap again, all the bluster gone out of him in favor of the old embarrassment. He'd overreacted. "I believe Mr. Parkinson split up with—with your daughter."

Simon glanced up and almost wanted to smile. Professor Flitwick looked like the world was spinning on its ear and offering to make him pancakes. Dad having a daughter. Simon couldn't actually remember a time when he hadn't had a sister, so he couldn't guess what the professor was feeling.

"You were defending Stella's honor?" Dad asked, incredulous.

" _No_ ," Simon insisted for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Stella broke up with Frank because he's great ponce. That was fine—he _is_ a great ponce."

"Watch your language, Mr. Prince," Professor McGonagall warned.

"Sorry, Professor," Simon said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking back at Dad. "I hexed him because he was going around saying she was crap in the sack anyway." Simon almost smiled, feeling a bit smug, when that comment went right up his father's nose. "I thought _that_ might stick in _your_ craw, too."

Dad turned his glare on the other professors, and the headmistress looked like she wished she was elsewhere. Like her plan for the conversation, the outcome of the Owl The Parents scenario, wasn't going at all to plan.

"Simon, you can't go around hexing anybody who says anything insulting," Dad said at long last, his voice straining for diplomacy. Simon frowned.

"You can when they're daft plonkers who haven't quite got the hang of Shield Charms."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" McGonagall snapped, and Flitwick seemed to be trying not to laugh. Simon, continuing to feel smug, met his father's eyes. There was definite amusement there.

"Professor! Professor!" The voice came up the stairs, and the Professor McGonagall got up to let the student through. In the office, Simon focused on his lap again. There was strange tension between Flitwcik and Dad, and not the I-don't-know-what-to-say sort of tension in "polite company" when they'd all had their say about the weather, but the thick, uncomfortable sort.

"Severus—" Flitwick began, but then Professor McGonagall was back, Stacia Norman, the other sixth-year Prefect, just visible at the base of the stairs beside the gargoyle.

"Filius, you're needed in the hospital wing," McGonagall said, back to business. "I'll finish up here." Flitwick nodded, gave Simon a sternly friendly look, and left. "Mr. Prince," McGonagall said, turning to Simon and giving him the familiar displeased headmistress look, "though it is good of you to stand up for your sister, dueling in the corridors is absolutely unacceptable. You will be serving two weeks' detention after supper each night with Professor Willoughby. Starting tonight." Her look pinned him in place. "You are a Prefect. Act like it."

Chagrined, and even more so because his father was present for that dressing-down, Simon glared at his knees and nodded.

"And if _I_ hear of any further incidents—and you know I don't rely simply on you and your sister for news from the school—there will be consequences at home to look forward to," Dad said. Simon glanced up at him and saw a summer full of menial labor in the back room of the shop. He nodded to show that he'd heard.

Simon's stomach rumbled again.

"Off to dinner with you, then," McGonagall said, and Simon didn't need to be told twice. He stood up, hugged his father (ignoring the flare of embarrassment when Dad kissed the top of his head like he'd done since Simon could remember—it was so much more embarrassing with the headmistress and all the portraits watching) and made a dash for the stairs.

"Tell your sister I said hello."

"Bye, Dad."


	3. Severus, May 2004

She was wearing a dress that should have earned her a Mastery in Charms on principle alone. It was silk, but the only reason he knew it was because he'd danced with her and felt the fabric on her waist. The silk was charmed to look like water, like a river. It flowed around her curves and fell down her legs. When she danced, the skirt was a spray of foamy white and the rest twinkled and caught the light with every movement.

She was astoundingly beautiful.

When she didn't dance, the fabric was calm. It reflected the colors around it, and the man who was her escort was dressed entirely in navy and white—her dress shimmered like the Black Lake in the evening. When she danced with Potter, her dress reflected the jade of his robes and looked like a mossy grove pool. When she danced with George Weasley, the garish orange of his robes was reflected amber and she looked almost nude, body glistening with the first rays of a sunset. When she danced with him, the dress was a pool of midnight darkness.

Her hair was drawn up into a tidy chignon, and he missed it. It was easy to guess that she wanted her hair out of the way to show off the wonderful dress, but her hair defined her in his mind more than any other physical feature. He couldn't miss the slender limbs or the delicate collar bones, the breasts and hips and curve of the waist, but it was the mass of curls that his eyes were drawn to.

"Master Snape," she said, drawing him out of his memory of her hair. If he hadn't spent so much time maintaining an aloof expression he might have jumped; he hadn't heard her approach. "Have you read the latest out of the Cerulean and Byrnes?"

"Drivel." The sneer was automatic, but he had to fight to maintain it when she laughed.

"Cutting-edge drivel," she corrected him after she'd had her laugh. "What do you think of the gene splicing? I meant to attend the presentation of the paper, but I was in Geneva."

He raised an eyebrow but didn't ask her for details. She was an Unspeakable. She dropped little details, names and cities, but told him little else. She did it to drive him mad, and it did (but he'd never let her know it).

"Why don't the two of you ever talk about things everybody else can understand?" Ron Weasley asked, appearing at her elbow. His robes were royal blue brocade, and Hermione's dress shone like the reflection of a summer afternoon sky.

He had a scathing remark on the tip of his tongue, but she beat him to it.

"You'd understand perfectly if you'd just pick up a book."

Weasley frowned and slouched away.

"Sorry about him," Lavender Brown said, taking his place next to Hermione. (The dress deepened to maroon, like a reflecting pool beneath a tree in full fall color.) "His exams are in two days."

"He's going to do just fine," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. Severus didn't know what exams Weasley was taking but he didn't care to ask; they'd _talk_ about it if he asked.

"I know he is." Brown beamed like the proud little fiancée she was. "I have to ask you, Hermione. Where did you get your dress? It's a marvelous trick!"

"Madam Malkin's," she said, then blushed. "I did the charm work myself."

Brown fawned over it, making Hermione blush deeper. The color was flattering. He imagined it carried down beneath the bodice, and that the hints of warmer red and peach tones in the dress were from color below the silk.

"Trouble, Uncle?" Draco asked, intercepting him near the punch bowl. Severus raised an eyebrow and refilled his glass, pretending he hadn't intended to slip out the door beyond the table and escape to the Cauldron and Kettle. "You had the look of a hunted man."

"They'd begun to talk of _fashion_ ," he said, spitting the word out like it was distasteful.

Draco laughed, practiced charm oozing from him. It made Severus's skin crawl; it reminded him of Lucius. Draco sobered quickly, probably because he'd reminded _himself_ of his father.

They stood to the side of the drinks table and talked. Severus asked after Draco's mother and Draco asked after his shop. It was all very cordial and boring; they had the same conversation every weekend when Draco visited him. Traditionally, Draco should haven visiting his father for advice and conversation now that he was branching out on his own, but Lucius was in Azkaban.

"Found you," Hermione said, appearing at his side. Her dress was still, the illusion of deep black water in the night enveloping her body. "Are you ready to go?"

She was on Draco's arm for the gala. Most would assume it was a political front, posturing for the papers; it wasn't. They were friends. They'd reconciled at St. Mungo's in the days after the Battle of Hogwarts, and then in the following school year when they were among the only students returning from their level to take their N.E.W.T.s. Draco was a Junior Healer now, and Hermione had taken her Mastery with her to the Department of Mysteries.

"Yes, I'm afraid I am," Draco said, smiling at Severus, shaking his hand. "Will I see you at the weekend?"

"You will."

Draco nodded, held out his arm for Hermione to take, and they were off. Her dress swirled behind her, the silk at her hips foaming like currents that traced down her thighs. He watched them, then went to the oversized window on the edge of the ballroom and watched Draco play the gentleman, giving Hermione a hand into the winged carriage that would take her home. Then the carriage was gone and Draco turned, directing an exaggerated bow to Severus in the window before Disapparating to his own home.

* * *

The flat above the Cauldron and Kettle was dark, quiet. The enchanted coat rack took his cloak, but the hall was otherwise still. Severus knew better than to think it was empty, though; the flat above the shop had long since become a home, a warm place like he'd never known before it. Even the comforts of Hogwarts didn't measure to his own shop, his own…

She was in the nursery. It was dark, and so was the water of her dress. The twinkle lights that floated across the ceiling, mixing into galaxies and solar systems while they lit the room just enough to see the infant girl's form beneath the blanket and the shadows of the toy box and rocking chair, reflected in the dress. She looked like she was wearing the stars.

His hand settled on her waist and she leaned easily against him as they looked down at their daughter. Stella—Estelle Monica (for Hermione's mother) Eileen (for Severus's mother) Prince (to match Simon) Snape. She was three months old. Still so small. A miracle unto herself. She and Hermione had both almost died during the birth. It felt like a long time ago, though.

And across the hall, Simon. He was a year and a half now.

Hermione had seen a Muggle doctor throughout her pregnancies and delivered their children in Muggle hospitals. There were Muggle birth certificates to go along with their Muggle marriage license. If any of it ever came out, if the wards on the Cauldron and Kettle were ever breached…

"Severus." Her voice drew him out of his thoughts. She was still pressed to his side, but she'd turned so that she could look up into his face.

"I love you," he told her, and it made her smile.

She tucked the blanket more snuggly around Stella, then followed him to Simon's room so they could both kiss their son goodnight. Her parents had stayed with the children during the gala, put them to bed.

The Grangers hadn't approved of him until Hermione had almost died; he'd been a wreck.

In their bedroom at the end of the hall, the dress was a midnight pool again. He peeled it off her, drawing it off her shoulders and down her legs, letting it whisper to the floor to lie in a puddle that gently glimmered in the moonlight streaming through the window. Her fingers tugged at his buttons, drawing him to her as she helped him out of coat and waistcoat.

The cat-kneazle sat on the dress, purring at the latent heat. The fabric when orange-white like a waterfall of orange soda, which made Hermione laugh when he pointed it out.


	4. Severus, December 1995

Severus hated Grimmauld Place. The only good thing about it was that Fuckhead seemed to hate the place even more. Also, Molly Weasley cooked for at least ninety more people than actually showed up to eat each meal, so there was always something left on the sideboard for him after the children had cleared out of the kitchen.

On top of his annoyance with the house, he was frustrated with the headmaster (though that was hardly unusual). Currently, he was frustrated with the headmaster because the old man was late. They'd arranged to meet in the library more than an hour ago, yet Severus was on his own in the back corner, hidden by some shelving and a Notice-Me-Not strong enough to redirect even the "master" of the house.

Said "master" was currently attempting to tune the piano. It was a grand old thing, not a twangy upright like his parents had had when he was small (it had vanished while he was away for his second year at Hogwarts, pawned for rent money or liquor or both). It was also enchanted to reproduce any melody that had ever been played on it, which would have been a very clever trick if it had been in tune.

"No, no, it's an E," Granger said, surprising him. She sounded like she'd reached the end of her tether, though he hadn't been aware that she was in the library. His eyebrows crawled up his forehead, then rose higher when she hummed a note. "An E. _E_."

"What are you on about?" Fuckhead asked, laughter in his voice.

"It's an E," Granger repeated, hitting the key over and over, humming in between. Presumably she was directing Fuckhead on the tuning, because, with much warbling, the two notes grew closer in pitch. "God, that's really horrible

"Hermione, lunch!" the Weasley girl called from the doorway. Granger stopped mashing the key.

"We'll come back to it, eh?" Fuckhead suggested. Granger might have nodded, but Severus didn't have a line of sight on them. He listened as they left the room, then turned his attention back to the book in his lap to continue to wait for the headmaster.

* * *

She came back very late that night. It was nearly midnight. Severus was only in the library still because his conversation with Dumbledore had left him with too much to think about and no desire to sleep.

"God, that _is_ horrible," she muttered again after pressing a few keys in what was probably supposed to have been a chord.

Severus felt the tickle of a Silencing Charm on the room and smirked. Typical Granger; utterly clever and a complete disregard for the rules and regulations. No underage magic outside of school? Tosh; there's a piano that needs tuning. Naturally, she was clever enough to know that the Trace would be useless to the Ministry in a Secret-Kept location, not to mention surrounded by of-age wizards.

"And just what, pray tell, are you up to in the dark of night?" he drawled. He'd let her go for almost half an hour, but the plunking and humming had finally driven him from his not-uncomfortable chair in the corner. Also, the tickle of her magic, the perfect match to his own, was making him… uncomfortable.

"Tuning this damn piano," she muttered, doing something inside the instrument before she looked up. When she saw him, she flushed crimson and added, "Sir."

"At midnight?"

"I couldn't sleep?"

"Because the piano was out of tune?"

Granger looked away and shrugged.

It was times like these that the affinity he felt for her made him crazy. She was such a child. A petulant _Gryffindor_ of a child, stubborn and impossible in the worst ways. He wished he could be properly annoyed with her, but the truth was that it was amusing. Hermione Granger: swot by day, piano-tuner by night. Preposterous.

"This isn't your home, Miss Granger," he said, pulling the last shreds of his patience around him like a mantle. "If you damage the piano, your parents won't smile and forgive you and hire a repairman. That is a Black Family heirloom."

"I'm not going to damage it," Granger scoffed, her eyes darting up to meet his. He could _feel_ her resisting the urge to roll her eyes, and it made him raise an eyebrow. "I've tuned more than my fair share of pianos, sir."

"Have you now."

"Yes, sir. My grandparents own a music shop that specializes in pianos. Maintenance, moving, tuning…" She realized it hadn't been a question and her mouth snapped shut. She blushed again.

"To bed, Miss Granger," he said. She went, chewing on her lip all the while.

Wondering just what the hell he was going to do about the girl, he pressed a few keys before leaving for Spinner's End.

The next night, when he'd made his way to the library to collect a few books after an Order meeting, Granger was there at the piano. He raised an eyebrow at her and she blushed; as far as he could tell, it was perfectly in tune.


	5. Severus, September 1991

His beginning of term speech had been delivered and the children had gone to bed, leaving Severus with one last evening free before he'd have marking and all manner of other things to occupy his time. Usually, the evening of September the first involved a tumbler of his good whiskey as he sorted the notes from his summer projects and stored them away until Christmas; this year, he fished the mangled packet of cigarettes out from the back of his desk drawer and chain-smoked them out on the observation platform of the Astronomy Tower. Minerva found him when he was on his third, the smoke hovering around him in the stillness of the evening.

"Mr. Snape," she said, her tone chastising and her wand light glaring against eyes that had adjusted to the darkness, "you should be in bed. Classes begin in the morning."

"Minerva," he said, acknowledging her presence without responding to the teasing.

"What's wrong?" She lowered her wand so that the light wasn't directly in his eyes, her expression growing serious. He knew he shouldn't say anything, but Minerva McGonagall had been his friend since he'd joined the staff. He didn't hesitate.

"I met my soul mate this evening."

"Did you, now," she said, letting the light go out and tucking her wand up her sleeve. It was one of those conversations that was easier to have in the dark, and he was grateful she knew it. "I wasn't aware you'd left the castle."

"Har," he said, scowling at her. "You don't have to fish."

"One of the first years, then?"

"Yes."

"I don't know whether I should congratulate you or offer my sympathy."

"Probably both," he said, shrugging. He snubbed out the spent cigarette and lit another one. It was the last from the pack; he'd have to make his way to the Muggle shops sometime soon.

"Are you going to tell me who she is? Or _he_ is?" Minerva got a gleam in her eye. "It wasn't—"

"I won't be telling you who she is, no," he said before she could ask him if it had been Harry Potter.

"One of my Gryffindors, then."

"You are fishing again," he told her. She shrugged and they lapsed into silence. He brooded on the painful years to come—not only would he have to contend with the spawn of James Potter, but this girl-child freaking _destined_ to be the love of his life. His soul mate.

"You shouldn't smoke those, you know. They tar up your lungs and give you cancer," Minerva said after a while.

"Oh, I hope they do," he muttered, but he snuffed it out anyway.

"Don't say that."

"She's a _child_ , Minerva. A solid twenty years younger than I am."

"A drop in the bucket," she said, waving her hand negligently. "Nicolas Flamel is sixty years older than his wife, and their marriage has lasted centuries."

"I think that's a special case."

Minerva made a Scottish scoffing noise. "Love is love, Severus."

"I'm not in love with the child, Min."

"You will be, though."

"I will _not_."

"She's your soul mate; you should let yourself love her."

"She's eleven."

"She won't be forever."

"She's my _student_."

"Not forever."

"Shall I go fetch her and drag her off to Gretna Green tonight, then?"

Minerva poked him hard in the shoulder. He rubbed at it while she glared at him.

"All I'm saying, Severus Snape, is that brooding up here and denying it isn't going to help you any. She is young now, and your student, but that won't always be the case. You should let life happen." She drew her wand and lit it again; her eyes were sparkling at him in a fond sort of way that made him feel vaguely bashful. "No doubt any soul mate of yours is going to be truly remarkable to watch grow. I look forward to meeting her."

"I don't bloody want to watch her _grow_. This whole situation is… creepy."

Minerva just laughed at him, patted his shoulder, and left him on the top of the tower to continue her rounds.


	6. Draco, February 1999

At first, he'd thought Severus was being obnoxiously solicitous. His father was dead, his mother was in jail. His extended family was either dead or he'd never met them because his parents had hated them. Severus was the only "family" he had left. Possibly, Severus was trying to make up for his part in destroying the regime that his parents had thrown their weight behind.

Not that Draco was especially disappointed that The Horrible House Guest Who Would Never Be Brought Up Ever Again was gone for good.

The once a week visits had turned into twice a week, then twice a week and once on the weekend. And then he'd noticed that Severus wasn't really visiting him so much as he was visiting Granger. Then, and most interestingly, he noticed that Severus wasn't visiting Granger so much as visiting Granger on the pretense of visiting Draco.

It was very interesting.


	7. letter from Hermione, July 1999

_Dear Mum and Dad,_

 _I hope you didn't throw this straight in the bin when you saw my handwriting on the front. I know I promised to give you space, and I am. I just wanted to give you my updated address just in case [inkblot] Just in case._

 _I have finished my N.E.W.T.s and been accepted as a Potions apprentice. I will be at Hogwarts for the next school year—I will be Potions Master Severus Snape's apprentice; he currently teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, though he was the Potions teacher for the first six years I attended the school._

 _If you want to contact me, you can do so as you always have when I've been at Hogwarts. Otherwise, the address below is for Snape's home, and he has said that he will collect any mail sent there for me._

 _I hope you are both well._

 _Yours,_

 _Hermione_


	8. Severus, November 2019

Severus retook his seat across from Minerva, wondering what the hell to say next. It had been a grand gesture for his son, sweeping into Hogwarts and laying claim, uncomfortable truths be damned. And, yes, it had been fun to see the look on Filius's face. But now…

"Do you think he'll figure it out?" Severus asked, massaging the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, eventually. He'll probably ply me with his best wine and want to spend a few hours guessing after things."

"He doesn't know that _you_ know."

"Of course not."

They sat in silence. Severus could feel the portraits watching him. It was more obnoxious than anything else.

"How is Hermione? Could she truly not make it?"

"She really is in Sicily," he said. "It would've been interesting if she were the one to have come."

"Filius would've taken it better, I think," Minerva said, smirking at him. "He wouldn't have hesitated to interrogate her about her husband and just what she's been up to all this time."

"She would've dodged him easily enough."

"I know, I know." Minerva's smirk turned into a proper smile.

"How are they doing, besides the dueling in the corridors?"

"They're good children, Severus. You know that. Loyal to each other, despite how 'uncool' it is to be familial in school." She picked up the letter he'd sent her telling her he was on his way, and crumpled it before tossing it in the bin. "I'm fairly certain he went after the Parkinson boy because he was trying to do it before Stella did. Incidentally, that is where Filius went. Mr. Parkinson waddled himself into the hospital wing just after the last class of the day."

"Oh?"

"Stinging Hex to the, _ahem_ , groin."

Severus barked a laugh, and Minerva grinned back at him. He was perfectly aware that the portraits around the room had given up on feigning sleep and were gaping at him instead.

"Do you need anything from me?" Severus asked. "Or has my presence sufficiently punished Simon with his own embarrassment?"

"His sister was involved. You know these things smooth out faster when it's families if the parents come in and do their own disapproving. Especially since he's a Prefect."

"I know, Min." They settled into a moment's quiet silence. He hadn't seen her since early the last summer, and he missed their chats. They owled one another regularly enough, but it just wasn't the same. His shop could run itself on most days, he had a good staff, and Hermione was out of the country.

"Now, what is your wife up to in Sicily?" Minerva asked. She had picked up on his inclination to stay, and she twirled her wand to bring her tea set to the desk.

"She was asked to join a think tank for the week. I'm sure she's drinking delightful wines and indulging in carbohydrates, talking through the buzz of a roomful of Translation Charms."

"But…?"

"But what?"

"You're nervous about something, laddie." She held the tin of ginger biscuits out to him.

"The topic under discussion," he said slowly, taking a bite of the biscuit, "is a marriage law."


	9. Severus, April 1996

Severus would have avoided the Burrow-cum-headquarters if that hadn't been where Hermione was staying. Their relationship—if that was the right word—had taken a turn for the inappropriate. He'd tried to explain that the _wanting_ was inappropriate. That they had to wait until she was no longer his student. She'd used words like "inevitable," and he'd ended up putting his foot in it. She'd left his office in a fury, and she hadn't so much as raised her hand in his class after that.

It wasn't that he didn't want to touch her, to kiss her (to bend her over his desk and fuck her and claim her and all manner of unspeakable and _inappropriate_ things). He did. He'd just never be able to look her in the eye if he did that to her. If she was his student and he entered into a _relationship_ with her. Hogwarts charter, antiquated as it was, would allow it (and she'd brought the books to prove it to him), but he was less concerned with his job than with his own moral standing as judged by himself. He'd done so many horrible things in his life; he'd like to do this one thing right.

Apparently, that was the wrong answer.

"Professor," Ginny Weasley said when she answered his knock. She burned beet red. "What color did my potion turn last term right before it exploded?"

He blinked at her for a moment before he remembered Arthur's hearty taking-on of the Ministry's home security procedures.

"Violet," he said. "Because you'd added _which_ ingredient too early even though I specifically reminded the entirety of the class not to do so not twenty minutes before?"

"Armadillo bile, sir." She was red to the tips of her ears. It was all he could do not to laugh. "Come on in, then. Mum's upstairs yelling at Ron about something, if she's who you're looking for. Dad's still at work."

"Actually, I'm here to see Miss Granger." He tried to look put-upon, but he probably only managed to look pained. Weasley would assume it was because he had been forced to seek out a student, not because he wasn't anticipating the fight he'd surely be walking into with his recalcitrant soul mate.


	10. Hermione, November 1998

Severus's note had been vague. It had had her on edge all day, wondering what was going on.

 _Meet me in my office after your last class. Dress in Muggle clothes. –S_

It was entirely unhelpful. It gave her absolutely no idea what she was dressing for. Should she dress up? Should she wear her sturdy boots? Her attempts throughout the day to catch his eye had been unsuccessful.

In the end, she'd worn her softest sweater and decided that if he questioned her, she'd just glare at him. Maybe it would teach him to be more specific.

All her fretting was for nothing, because he didn't seem to notice anything beyond the fact that she was clothed. He let her into his office without saying a word, and then took her through the Floo to his house at Spinner's End. He held her hand as they walked down the street to a dark spot well outside his wards and Apparated.

"Severus," she said, more sharply than she'd intended, "you need to start talking. Why are we here?"

He'd taken her to a prison. Not Azkaban, a Muggle prison.

"Today is my father's birthday," he said.

"I—" she started, then frowned. "I'm sorry, Severus. I didn't realize your father was… not dead."

Surprisingly, he laughed. "It's not something that normally comes up."

"No," she said.

"My mother was killed in a car crash," he said, his tone close to the one he used when he'd settled into a lecture: Clear, slightly bored. "A hit and run. My father witnessed it, but wasn't hurt himself. He tracked down the car he'd seen, then killed the man he thought was driving the car."

"The man he _thought_ was driving the car?"

"There's no way to be sure, and the man's family insisted he'd been in London at the time of the crash."

"Oh."

Severus shrugged, meeting her eyes for only a moment before looking away. "He was sentenced to thirty years minimum."

"Oh."

"I…" He looked so lost that she reached out and took his hand again. One corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn't manage a proper smile. "I never liked him. But he's me da."

"If you'd told me you wanted me to meet your father, I would've worn something nicer."

"You look fine," he said, his equilibrium apparently restored. He held her hand more firmly and led the way inside.


	11. Severus, December 2020

"Severus Snape," the Guild representative said sternly, "when did you first have—physical congress—with your wife?"

"The night of our wedding," Severus said, voice even, expression blank. The Veritaserum itched at the back of his throat, urging him to share the full truth, to answer the question he knew the representative meant to ask. He ignored the itch.

"The night of your wedding," the representative repeated, eyes narrowed. The wizard was obviously trying to work out how Severus had circumvented the truth serum. Since Severus himself was the Potions Master the Guild of Potioneers usually called in to answer questions such as that, Severus allowed himself to sneer at the older man.

"Allow me to rephrase," one of the Board said, leaning forward to better look down on Severus. "When did you first have _physical congress_ with Hermione Granger?"

"June 5, 1998," Severus said. He would've liked to hesitate, to appear to consider his answer. It was a direct question, though, and the Veritaserum had him spouting off as quick as thought. (It was his own damned fault, too, since the Guild used one of his patented modifications.)

"Why, then, did you say you hadn't— _ahem_ —until your wedding night?" the examiner asked, eyes too big. He was sweating slightly, Severus noted.

"Because one cannot _have sex_ with one's wife until one has married her," he drawled, raising an eyebrow. Then he gritted his teeth as the potion forced him to answer the rest of the question: "And because I resent this inquest."

"Do you?" the representative asked rhetorically.

"Yes," Severus said. The Veritaserum didn't give a whit if the question was rhetorical; it forced an answer.

"Perhaps you should not have had physical congress with your apprentice, then, Mr. Snape!" the representative said, voice rising toward the shrill end. Severus's eyebrow crawled up his forehead again.

"You have not established that I ever _did_ 'have physical congress' with my apprentice," he said. "You have asked me if I 'had physical congress' with my wife, and I confirmed that. And you asked me when I first 'had physical congress' with her, and I answered that it was directly after the war. She was not my apprentice the summer after the war."

"Would you _cooperate_?" the representative hissed. He had turned a rather pleasing shade of puce, and his bald spot was gleaming.

"Yes," Severus said. "I _am_ cooperating. I've answered every one of your questions to the letter."

"Yes," the representative hissed. "To the letter."

Severus allowed himself to smirk. Hermione was usually the Guild member called upon to act as representative during official inquests.

"MacDougal, you may sit," the Chair said, standing. The representative gratefully returned to his place at the end of the raised desk where the Board sat looking down on Severus in his plain chair at the center of the room. The Chair wiped his monocle on his sleeve while MacDougal tapped his papers together irritably, then returned his focus to Severus. "Mr. Snape. You are accused of the falsification of apprenticeship documentation, and sexual misconduct with an apprentice in your power. How do you respond to these accusations?"

"Separately, Chairman," Severus said, biting his tongue to withhold a more extensive answer and then to contain a snort when the Chair looked toward where Hermione usually stood ready to provide disambiguation and detail on the proceedings.

"Separately," the Chair repeated, scowling.

"Yes, sir."

"How so?"

"I respond to the accusation of falsification of apprenticeship documentation with firm denial," Severus said. "I respond to the accusation of sexual misconduct with an apprentice under my power by citing section D, parts twelve through forty, of the Guild's Charter."

"Billings?" the Chair said, turning to the Potions Master next to him. The smaller wizard opened the leather-bound book in front of him and flipped through more pages than could've fit between the covers without an Extension Charm before stopping and trailing his finger along the words in front of him.

"The section Mr. Snape is referring to concerns the definition of 'misconduct' when extenuating circumstances are present," Billings said, looking at the Chair and then at Severus. "If you aim to claim a preexisting sexual relationship, Mr. Snape, you should know that the Guild would have grounds to accuse you of partiality. The Charter clearly prohibits the training of relatives and spouses."

"I did not take my spouse on as an apprentice," Severus said.

"You _did_ , however, take your apprentice to bed," Billings said. "And you married her before the completion of her Mastery Examinations."

"Yes," Severus said, the truth serum not allowing him to deny it outright. "As I have stated, however, there were extenuating circumstances surrounding the 'physical congress' in question."

"Duly noted," Billings said dryly, a smile hiding somewhere behind his eyes.

"At this juncture," Severus said before they could question him (and accuse him) further, "I would like to register a complaint."

"A complaint," MacDougal said, scoffing. Others murmured along the Board, but Severus ignored them and kept his eyes on the Chair.

"It is the Guild's standard practice to strip a Master of title and certifications when accusations such as these have been filed against him. All of his patents and brews currently in distribution are held pending verification at the conclusion of proceedings," Severus said, and if he was quoting his wife on that nobody would know. Or, rather, _everybody_ would know. (It was almost liberating, if he could've forgotten about the inquest.) "As you all have so aptly remembered to call me 'Mister' instead of 'Master' throughout proceedings, it strikes me as strange that you would have forgotten to hold the Variant IX Veritaserum I was given at the beginning of this questioning. It is not only my own patent, but, as I am—was—the only Master registered and approved to brew it, a potion of my own brewing."

"And your complaint?" the Chair asked. The wizard looked decidedly uncomfortable.

"Improper proceedings," Severus said easily. "These accusations have been made and answered while I was under the influence of a potion that should be in a holding room while the research and patent paperwork behind it is reviewed and vetted."

"Bollocks," MacDougal said under his breath, but, in the otherwise silent room, everyone heard him. Severus didn't bother to hide his sneering grin as he was led from the hearing room.


	12. Severus, 1991

He'd decided to ignore it. Ignore her. He'd come to the conclusion that the best way to handle it would be to pretend like she was any other student.

It only sort of worked.

He watched her. _Constantly_. Always aware of her, always looking for her. She was Muggle-born Gryffindor, the very last person he could approach in the school, being the Head of Slytherin and (supposedly) some sort of sleeper-agent spy waiting for the return of the Dark Lord. He wasn't sure what the hell he'd say to her, anyway.

Hermione Granger was almost painfully clever. He watched her that first week, watched a little of the light leak away as she realized that she wasn't clever because she was a witch, that she was still an outcast. The other Gryffindor girls bonded immediately, empty-headed things that they were. Granger was left alone. By Thursday, she had a book with her at the table for every meal. (It was very much like his own first weeks at Hogwarts.) She sat with the Longbottom boy in classes, but he was no match for her; not by a long shot.

She almost died on Halloween, and then she lied about it. She was attacked by a troll, and she claimed she'd gone looking for it. He knew for a fact she hadn't gone looking for it because she'd never been in the Great Hall to hear about it in the first place. He'd noticed.

It was rather Slytherin of her, really. Her lie won her two steadfast friends, though she had lamentable taste. From then on, whenever he'd been looking for her he'd only had to find Harry Potter (easy enough to do since half the school tended to gather in the halls to watch him walk to and from class) and there she was. She seemed happier, though, and the troll hadn't actually hurt her.

"It's Miss Granger, isn't it?" Minerva asked him the weekend after the incident with the troll. They'd been sitting in his office as they usually did after lunch on Saturdays. He'd been marking sixth year essays, and she'd been scoring a quiz she'd set her second years.

"What's Miss Granger?" he asked without looking up. Stevens had submitted a particularly foul essay; not for the first time, he wished there was _some_ form of English language instruction at Hogwarts.

"Your soul mate," Minerva said, drawing him out of his focus.

"What about my soul mate?" he asked, blinking. She glared at him. "I was marking Stevens' essay. I had very little spare brain-power, considering the punctuation."

"Poor boy," Minerva said, tutting at the parchment. "I asked Pomona last year if she'd see about suggesting summer lessons to his parents."

"I doubt Stevens would put any focus to them, even if his parents tried them," Severus said. He gave up the reading and scratched a 'P' at the top of the paper. "Now what were you saying about Miss Granger?"

"I was asking if she was the one who made your heart dance a rumba."

"You're not as funny as you think you are," he said darkly. She laughed at him anyway.

"I could almost see that match, after this week," she said when she'd finished her chuckling. "That troll."

"She lied about going looking for it, you know," he said. He'd pulled another essay to him, but it was suddenly, strangely, important that she knew Granger hadn't been stupid enough to go looking for a dangerous magical creature on her own. "I think she was having a cry."

"I think you're right, the poor dear. I'm going to have her to my office this week for tea."

"For tea?"

"I'm her Head of House, Severus. If she's locking herself up in bathrooms in October, something needs to be done."

"Mm," he grunted, not sure how he felt about it one way or the other.

* * *

She was a particularly obnoxious thorn in his side the rest of the school year. He was almost absolutely certain that she set his robes on fire—she _literally_ set him on _fire_ —at one point.

That summer, he Polyjuiced himself and went to a magical book store in Glasgow. He asked as many airheaded questions as he could think of, and let loose the full atrociousness of his childhood accent. He didn't want any of those books traced back to Professor Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin House at Hogwarts—from _True Love and How to Find It_ and _The Magical Affinities of Soul Males_ , to _A Look at Love: Disambiguation and Investigation_ and several rather dark texts about love and lust brought about by magical means.

After a summer of reading, a ritual bonfire to get rid of the more insidious volumes, and a rather drunk conversation with Minerva, he still didn't felt prepared to deal with the idea of having a soul mate.

The best of the books insisted that the idea of "soul mates" wasn't a correct interpretation of this _affinity_. It was a soul pairing, and had been known to happen to people not romantically involved. Based solely on just how uncomfortable the Granger girl made him, he had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn't be so lucky.


	13. Hermione, May 1998

The Ministry gala was officially a fundraiser for Hogwarts to refill the coffers following the expenses of the repairs, but unofficially it was a victory celebration. Celebrities were invited, "war heroes," anybody who had ever worked at Hogwarts in any capacity, and any Ministry employee with a family pocketbook. There were a lot of very old family names circulating at a party celebrating people who had supposedly overthrown that system. The irony was not lost on Hermione.

She'd dressed to the nines for it, as Minerva had requested.

"I know it's a farce, dear, but we really did drain our scholarship fund repairing the castle," she'd said. "We can give them a show."

And a show it would be. She'd chosen a Muggle evening gown instead of dress robes. It was black silk, off the shoulders with no back to speak of and a plunging neckline. It hugged her curves, and since she'd been eating three square meals a day for the last two months, she finally had curves again. Paired with black pumps with heels so high she'd had to charm them so she could walk, the getup was scandalous. She'd pulled her hair back into a tight chignon and bought bright red lipstick, too.

She met Harry and Ron at the phone booth that disguised the guest entrance to the Ministry. (The "Golden Trio" should arrive together, after all.) Their grand entrance involved riding the thing down to the main atrium, knowing that first they'd see her shoes, then her legs, then her ass, then her tits, then her face. And the flashbulbs would be going off the whole time. It was horrendous, but she kept her chin up and her arms linked with the boys'.

"This way," Ron muttered, steering them down the tunnel of press, hardly kept at bay by velvet barrier ropes. They ended up in a well-appointed ballroom with decorative panel walls and a trio of hovering chandeliers each the size of a VW Bug. All she could think of was the sound the Malfoys' chandelier had made when Dobby dropped it on her.

They circulated, first together and then separately. She eventually found Severus—or rather, Severus found her. He brought her a firewhiskey and she beamed at him because it wasn't champagne.

"You are all anybody is talking about," he told her, sipping his whiskey and smirking at her. She rolled her eyes.

"That was the point."

"I didn't think you liked that sort of attention." He spoke as if he were reevaluating her, and she frowned.

"I don't. I promised Minerva I'd help, though. I'm helping. I'm reminding them what the war was about, and I'm schmoozing."

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she sighed.

"Muggle dress, Snape. I'm Muggle-born; I'm making that very clear. And the dress makes it very clear that I've—"

"Nearly been killed too many times."

"You say the nicest things."

The dress revealed almost every single scar she had. The red-purple band of scar from Dolohov's curse at the Department of Mysteries so long ago, cutting its way from just above her heart between her breasts to taper to an end above her opposite hip. MUDBLOOD carved in jagged white letters on her left forearm. A hundred tiny white lines from the chandelier that had fallen on her—most of the cuts had been healed without a trace, but there had been thousands of them and the deepest had left their marks all over her, speckling her back and shoulders, and one carving a delicate half-moon shape on her left cheekbone. The uneven white circlets around her wrists and ankles from manacles worn too long. The crinkled white scar across her throat that matched the one on Severus's throat exactly.

The worst of the physical damage from the war had been internal, of course. And she'd spent all that time in the bikini forcing herself to get over the scars. (Scars were a rare thing in the wizarding world, considering the healing spells and potions available. Having scars either marked one as a criminal who couldn't seek proper medical attention, or inept for not thinking to seek proper medical attention. She was neither of those things.)

"Now, here's my plan," she said, putting her empty tumbler on a tray hovering nearby and picking up a fresh flute of champagne. "I will circulate and tell these wealthy fuckers all about how I'm destitute—my parents have all but disowned me and refuse to pay for anything but a return to the Muggle world, and now I'm relying on Hogwarts' scholarship fund to complete my education. Then, you come around after me and tell them how I'm the Brightest Witch of My Age and all that rot, and what a pity it is that the scholarship fund can barely support my education let alone that of others in my position."

"Why the hell weren't you Sorted into Slytherin?" he asked, smirking, almost grinning. She smirked back.

"Because I'm Muggle-born. The Hat actually debated between Ravenclaw and Slytherin for quite a while before it realized I only knew about the Houses because I'd already read _Howarts: A History_ and then it decided I'd have to be Gryffindor."

"Pity." And he really did sound like he'd rather she'd been in his House.


	14. Severus, May 1999

"This is a horrible choice, laddie," Minerva said, sitting back in her armchair and cradling the tumbler between her hands. He'd poured her a few fingers of his good whiskey before bringing it up.

"Don't call me 'laddie'," he told her, retaking his seat in the chair next to hers. "It makes me feel like I'm twelve."

"Sometimes, I think you _are_."

"Tell that to my knees."

Minerva snorted and toasted him silently. They sat and drank for a moment before she spoke.

"Severus, this could very well be a horrible mistake."

"It most certainly is."

"Then why choose it? It's a _choice_."

"I…" Severus set his drink aside so that he could pace properly. "It's not exactly a rational… reasoning."

"You want what's best for her. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Is taking her on as your apprentice really what's best for _her_?"

"There's the hole in your logic," he said. "It was her idea."

"You're joking."

"I'm not."

Minerva made a Scottish noise and sipped at her whiskey for a moment.

"Horace would gladly take her on. Or Art."

"Not bleeding likely."

Minerva smiled a knowing smile that got on his nerves. He turned away to keep pacing.

"She doesn't want a thing to do with Horace, and I don't want her to have a thing to do with _Willoughby_."

"You never really warmed to him," Minerva observed with that horrible knowing look. He scowled at her and sat down again.

They finished their drinks in silence. Minerva finally set her cup aside and rose, looking down at him for a moment.

"Just don't get _caught_ , Severus."

She kissed his forehead and left the room before he could think of something to say in response.


	15. Hermione, July 2014

Hermione frowned at the letter. It had arrived that morning with the post, and Simon had been so excited. He'd jumped around the house, asking when they could go shopping for his supplies, if he could get an owl of his own, and telling Stella how fantastic it would be because he'd have a year to get his bearings and then he could show her around.

Mostly, Hermione shared her son's anticipation. He was more than ready to begin his formal studies, and she was happy that he was so excited about it. She would miss him terribly, and it would be even worst next year when Stella was gone as well, but that was how it all worked.

The one aspect she was truly dreading was the inevitability that her children would discover the war. They had done all they could to shelter them from that chapter of their past. They'd moved to the country, led a quiet life. It had been nearly scandalous in the beginning, of course, but they'd planned it all out.

They hadn't planned on the children, of course. At least not so soon.

They'd planned his leaving Hogwarts. As his apprentice, it was only natural that she'd gone with him. Friends visited the shop and left with stories of their split flat above, his side and her side with a solid door between them. They were none the wiser about the rush around the flat before guests arrived making both halves look lived in and separate.

The Wizarding public was a fickle thing. It was both amusing and alarming. "Alarming" wasn't the right word, though—maybe "disconcerting" would be better.

After Severus had announced he was leaving Hogwarts, the public had thrown a fit. He'd been a fixture of Hogwarts for years, how could he leave, who would replace him, but he'd always been part of Hogwarts, why did he ever want to go… And then the focus had turned to the shop, who would work there, where it would be located, what would he sell, who would be his suppliers, why had he chosen the smaller Vertick Alley when he certainly could've drummed up enough business for Hogsmeade or even Diagon Alley.

Before the end of her apprenticeship, though, the interested had faded. Business was good, but it was good because they sold quality products not because the owner was famous. Severus had taken a step back, hired assistants to run the counter. He'd started using the name Prince in public, wearing colors and Muggle jeans when he left the shop, and making a point of being polite without being memorable. He was very good at blending in when he wanted to.

Hermione, for her part, had been a bit of a recluse at first. She'd sat her exams, given birth, and then immediately gotten pregnant again. She'd begun at the Department of Mysteries, then taken a leave of absence because she'd almost died having Stella. She'd returned to work, relied on her coworkers' politeness in not pressing for details about the children's father when she wasn't immediately forthcoming and didn't wear a wedding ring to boot, and distracted any nosier coworkers with pictures of her babies. Mostly, though, she just didn't talk about her home life.

The neighbors seemed to think that she'd had a failed marriage—or maybe an affair or something—with a Muggle. They'd seen her pregnant, and they'd seen her with the babies. They'd also seen Severus with the babies. But nobody saw them as a couple, and the general idea was that neither of them were stupid enough to have jeopardized their credentials by sleeping together during her apprenticeship…

It wasn't surprising to the community that Severus took care of the children, whether they were his or not. It wasn't surprising to the community when Roxanne Weasley spent the weekend, or even Scorpius Malfoy now and again. Mostly, by the time the children were old enough to be seen around town with their father, Severus had become Tobias Prince, the quiet man who owned the potions shop on the corner and was so kind to that curly-haired girl from the war, the one who worked too hard when she had little ones at home.

Truthfully, it hadn't mattered a jot to Hermione or Severus what the people around them thought of their life choices. The children were oblivious to any oddities, and there were no officials scrutinizing paperwork.

But Hogwarts. And the war. And…

Simon and Stella were both very smart. They would eventually realize that it was a bit odd how their parents didn't hold hands, or even really touch at all, in public. And how they'd worked so hard to bury themselves in obscurity when they could've capitalized on their fame and retired young like Uncle Ron.

Hell, it was surprising they hadn't noticed how truly reclusive their lives were. They didn't have anything to compare it to, of course, and they truly were their parents' children, preferring books and libraries to the Junior Quidditch League.

It was a small miracle Minerva had been in on the secret. She'd made a few adjustments to the listings for them—Simon's surname would be Prince for the Sorting Hat, not Snape. And their names would appear as Tobias and Jean Prince on the Head of House forms.

"Stop," Severus said, and Hermione realized she'd been sitting at the kitchen table wringing her hands while she stared at Simon's Hogwarts letter.

"Sorry," she said, pressing her palms to her thighs to make herself stop.

"It's late," he said.

She nodded. It was completely dark outside, and the flat had that quality of quiet that settled over everything after the children fell asleep.

"It's not fair to them," she said. Severus crouched in front of her and took her hands in his, rubbing her knuckles gently. "They didn't do anything wrong."

"Hermione," he said, his tone utterly unconcerned. It was infuriating how calm he could be about something that had kept her up late at night on and off since Simon had been born. "What's coming will come and we'll meet it when it does."

"Hagrid said that."

"He's full of wisdom like that."

"He used to always tell me that they'd come 'round," she said, then clarified: "The boys. There were so many times when we were mad at each other for whatever reason and they wouldn't be speaking to me, because they always took each other's side against me. I'd go down to Hagrid's, and he'd made me tea and inedible cakes and he'd tell me to give them time. They'd come 'round. And then they would."

"You see? Hagrid's always right."

"Hagrid thought it would be a good idea to buy a dragon egg off a bloke in the pub."

"Well…" Severus shrugged and grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes.


	16. Severus, 1993

She was permitted to use a Time Turner for her classes her third year. There were two other students doing the same, both Ravenclaws. The Ravenclaws had burnt themselves out trying to keep it up before Christmas and dropped classes to a normal schedule. If he was a bit proud that _his_ … that Granger was able to keep it up when those snotty Ravenclaws hadn't managed it, he made sure nobody was the wiser. Especially not Minerva.

He refused to think about her involvement in the horror at the end of the year. Sirius bludgering Black. Fuckhead.


	17. Draco, March 2004

The Cauldron and Kettle was a successful little shop, especially considering people at large had somehow forgotten it was Severus Snape that owned it. His godfather's knack for letting people notice only what he wanted them to notice was impressive.

Draco nodded at the shop girl, then made his way through the door half hidden behind a large rack of vials. He could hear some potion hissing from the basement, meaning Severus would be downstairs brewing. Draco hesitated, considering going down to say hello, but decided to carry on upstairs. He was in the middle of brewing, and Draco had come to see Hermione anyway.

Hermione Jean Granger Prince Snape. The lot of them just kept tagging names on. The latest child had just as many as her mother; luckily, they'd taken to calling her Stella. Or at least they had in their letters. He hadn't seen them in two weeks, since the day before Hermione had gone into labor. She'd almost died, and it had seemed better to give them their space than to rush over to offer assistance.

He'd even offer to watch The Little Terror if he had to. The boy spent entirely too much time with George Weasley.

"Hello," Hermione said when he found her. She was sitting at the dining room table in a pale pink nightgown and fluffy white robe. She was almost as pale as her clothes. Even her hair looked wan and tired.

"You should be in bed," he told her. He had to resist the urge to cast diagnostic spells at her. Birth- and labor-related complications were not his area of specialty, but he'd officially earned his Healer's certificate six months before and he'd been doing a lot of reading. He'd offered to visit in the Muggle hospital, even.

He didn't have enough decent friends these days to let one of them go trying to give birth like a Muggle. (It was typical Granger, though.)

"I'm tired of bed," Hermione said, taking a bite of marmalade-smeared toast and glaring at him while she chewed. "Severus is downstairs brewing, so I made my escape."

"You must be feeling better if he left you alone." He sat down at the table and a cup set itself in front of him, floating down from the decorative cabinet in the corner of the room. The tea set poured of its own accord.

"I'm not alone," she countered once she'd finished chewing. "Severus is never far. And Stella is sleeping in the other room."

Draco frowned at her but held his tongue. He added cream and sugar to his tea, stirring thoughtfully. Hermione frowned back at him.

"I'm not _ill_ , Draco. I'm not fragile or broken or injured. I'm… just a bit tired right now is all."

"You almost died, Hermione."

"Who told you that?" she asked sharply.

"George Weasley."

"That man can't keep a secret to save his life."

"He didn't tell me _willingly_ ," Draco admitted. "I saw Simon in the shop and… pressed for details."

"Oh, poor George," Hermione said, but she was smiling. There were dark circles under her eyes, and the smiling made them look more purple and bruise-like.

"What happened, Hermione?" he asked, unable to stop himself. He'd gotten the basics of it from Weasley, but hardly enough to keep him from worrying. "How can I help?"

"That's kind of you," Hermione said, focusing on her toast. She lined it up square in the center of her plate, then picked it up and finished it off.

Draco waited patiently for her to answer his question. She would. She couldn't help herself. She liked to fill silences.

"It was a slow labor to begin with," Hermione said. She looked at her tea instead of him, but that was fine. "The first bit was okay. It was like with Simon. But then labor just stopped. The Muggles said something was wrong with the baby, with Stella. They started a c-section."

"C-section?"

"Cesarean section. They surgically remove the baby from the mother."

"But that's—you can't _do_ that to a witch, that's—"

"Yes, I know," Hermione said. "I know that now."

"Oh, Granger. What did they do to you?" He felt a little bit sick.

"I'm fine, Draco."

"You wanted more kids, though." Severus had told him they'd decided on five.

"I don't think, even if was a physical possibility, either of us could do it again, Draco," Hermione admitted to her tea. "It… _rattled_ the both of us."


	18. Severus, Nov 2019

He spun back into his own fireplace and flicked his wand to clean up the ash. The Hogwarts Floos were always pristine (house elves), but his own needed a thorough cleaning. He'd have to call someone about that sooner rather than later.

His shop was just as he'd left it. Quiet. It was late afternoon on a Wednesday, and that was typically one of the slower times.

He liked his shop. It was the opposite of his potions classroom, which had been dark and wet. Here, the fireplace and mantelpiece were white marble, and the woods were all untreated beach both in the floor and the moulding on the walls. The walls were white, the shelving was more pale beach, and all of it was loaded to capacity with clear glass vials and jars full of colorful potions and elixirs. In the afternoons, the light came in clear through the big windows at the front of the shop. In the evening, a clever manipulation of Hermione's bluebell flames illuminated the space—jars charmed to hold the flames lit as dusk approached; they were attached to the tops of the shelving units so that the light reached the whole room, and the nature of the conjured flames didn't damage the ingredients at all. The blue-white lights dancing on the pale wood was one of his favorite sights; it was almost like moonlight.

"Anything interesting?" he asked the assistant on duty, but the man just shook his head. "I'll be brewing if you need me."

"Thanks, sir."

Severus went through the door behind the register counter. It opened on a narrow space with a staircase going up and a staircase going down. Up brought him to their flat, but it was empty now since the children were at Hogwarts and Hermione was in Sicily. Down brought him to his lab.

He was halfway through the overlarge batch of Burn Paste (a monthly order from St. Mungo's) when he heard her familiar tread on the stairs.

"You're home early."

"Yes, but not properly," she said, sitting down heavily on a stool at the workspace in the corner. The desk there was covered in parchment and broken quills, a clear sign that he'd been spending more time than he should be experimenting with potions and spells in her absence. He'd been planning to clear it all away before she got back.

"How do you mean?" He removed the stirring rod and turned up the flame beneath the cauldron to let the potion reduce down to a proper paste. Hermione smiled up at him when he turned to her, and tipped her face so that he could kiss her hello.

"There's a one-hour recess."

"You Apparated from Sicily?"

"They're going to pass the Act and we're going to be caught in it. You and I have some… decisions to make."

"Decisions?"

"Sorry," she said, rolling her eyes at herself and conjuring a chair, gesturing for him to sit as well. He did. "It's been all we've talked about for days. I forgot nobody else knows."

"Hm." He nodded so that she'd know he was listening.

"It's a Marriage Act."

"As in the Marriage Act of 1256?"

"Yes. And 985 before that. And others before that, but there aren't even goblins alive that are that old."

"Each instance of a Marriage Act was eventually overturned as being immoral," he said. "Overreaching the bounds of government. Something along those lines."

"Yes, and the committee fully expects the Act will be overturned in time, but it will take time," Hermione said, running a hand through the madness of her hair. "Proponents argue that in the time it will take to overturn the Act, the population will recover enough that it won't matter."

"They're concerned about the population?"

"I understand the concern. If it were just a numbers game—or if we were talking about herd animals—it would be perfectly reasonable to stimulate population growth."

"Except we're people." Severus sneered.

"That's what I said. Percy and I, one of the ambassadors from Spain, both of them from Portugal, and three from Greece have been pushing that argument from the beginning."

"They ignored you."

"Oh, no. They heard me."

He almost laughed. He could imagine it, his wife standing at the center of the room delivering passionate speeches to the collected ambassadors, eyes flashing when one of them disagreed with her.

He sobered almost immediately.

"Do you think we should sell?"

"This was your dream," she said.

"I had it. It was nice."

"Don't you dare say it was nice while it lasted," she said, shaking a finger at him. It almost made him smile.

"It was nice," he said more forcefully. "Just plain nice, Hermione. That's it. It's just a shop."

"It's a dream."

He kissed her forehead. "It's just a shop."

"It's _your_ shop," Hermione said quietly. "It's a good shop."

"We won't sell it. We can't." He was thinking out loud now. "It's going to absolutely torpedo our careers. How long do we have?"

"That's why I came on the recess. They're voting in—" She checked his pocket watch. "—twenty minutes. It will be announced in the morning papers. UK. Scandinavia. The Iberian Peninsula. Every nation that touches the Mediterranean. And India."

"It's bad." He hadn't thought it—the population crisis—was, could be, that bad.

"I was in favor of an incentives approach after I saw the numbers."

"Shit." If he hadn't been sitting down, he would've sat down hard.

"We need to stay on topic. I can show you all the figures when I come home tomorrow and we can talk it through." She sighed. "God, we knew this was coming from the beginning, but…"

"I thought we would have more time."

He squeezed her hands, not sure when he'd taken them in his.

"We don't sell; we'll need the income. Neither of us will be able to work for a while."

"Right."

"We have Rizzoli. And there are dozens of applicants on file."

"You do like to hold those over poor Antonio…"

"So we hire two, put Rizzoli in charge of the lab. I'll step back. Keep the books, throw the press out when they come sniffing."

"I've been thinking about retiring, anyway."

"You haven't."

"Well. I have for the last few days."

"Your position doesn't _require_ the mastery."

"They could claim false representation of my credentials on my application."

"You've worked there for years. You've sat every assessment, exam and evaluation required of you, and volunteered for a few that weren't." She poked him in the ribs for that last, but he just raised an eyebrow at her. She had a habit of making every effort to go above and beyond expectations.

"It's a competitive workplace," she said, and he nodded because he already knew that. It had been what ultimately made her choose it instead of joining him brewing for the apothecary or taking one of many offers at a private firm. "There are plenty of people who would love to have a way to get my hat out of the ring."

"Are you up for a promotion?" he asked, and she snorted.

"It's the Ministry. The whole job is one long bid for the next rung up the ladder."

"You're very close to the top, Hermione."

"That much farther to fall."

"God, how could this one thing—one _good_ thing—fuck over the rest of—"

She interrupted him with a kiss. A quick peck on the lips, and then she smiled at him. She had a brilliant, beautiful smile.

"It doesn't fuck over the rest of anything; it just changes things. Like we always knew it would."

"How much time do we have?"

"There will be at least six months between the announcement and the earliest the Act could be passed. And there will be a grace period for people to… attach themselves."

"The children will be back in school, at least. Minerva will help."

"It's good to have friends," Hermione said, running her hands through her hair again. "I have to get back."

"Give them hell." He kissed her. "Aim for the long grace period. Bog down their damned process."

"Of course, dear."


	19. Severus, June 1996

There was so much blood. And it was all hers. Her blood. Granger's blood.

She was dying.

He was the one who was supposed to die, therefore freeing her to live her life and find a more appropriate… mate.

It was the first time he'd touched her bare skin. Some sick (male hindbrain) part of him appreciated her tits while the rest of him panicked about all the _blood_ and the twisty dark curse that had landed her on the bed in the hospital wing, still bleeding and dying several hours after the rest of the students involved in the foolish run on the Ministry had been healed and induced to sleep.

"There," Poppy finally said. Severus blinked, trying to see through the mess of blood that was Hermione's torso. "It's done, Severus. She'll come 'round."

"I have potions to brew," he said shortly. It was true enough—Granger would be on a strict regimen of rather disgusting brews for the next several weeks if she didn't want her torso to split open whenever she was feeling particularly emotional. He was afraid if he stayed in the hospital wing much longer, he'd kiss her there in front of the matron and handful of Order members who'd gathered to "help."

Skin-to-skin contact, according to Romanov, was a catalyst in truly soul mated couples. An affinity may simmer under the surface, perhaps unacknowledged or simply ignored, for decades if there was no skin-to-skin contact. However, it was the final ingredients. A confirmation. The two hard thumps of the heart as a first sign, then the full-body _thrum_ at first skin-to-skin contact. It had almost killed her all over again, her blood surging through her veins and arteries as their magic thrummed together in some patently _stupid_ dancing love connection mamba thing.

He'd been so careful throughout her career as a student. He'd never corrected her grip on her knife or ladle in Potions (not that she'd needed it), and even when he'd put himself between her and the werewolf he hadn't contacted skin-to-skin. All of that blown away in an instant, and an instant that could've left her dead.

He was light-headed, but he wouldn't sit down. He had potions to brew.


	20. Draco, January 1999

Severus arrived before breakfast. Actually, it was so bleeding early in the morning that Draco would've assumed he'd been in with Granger had she not looked so confused.

"Uncle?" he asked, trying to think of something witty to say about the non-relationship with two were pretending was nothing while he tied his tie.

"They've arrested your father," Severus said, Vanishing Draco's humor and morning stupor both.

"My father is dead," Draco said dumbly.

"He'd fled to France," Severus said, his voice so carefully neutral it made Draco's teeth hurt.

"Mother gave him up, didn't she?" Draco asked, and didn't need the nod to read the answer in Severus' lack of expression. "You'd think she'd show just a bit of loyalty rather than roll over for a reduced sentence."

"My contact told me she gave him up in a Dementor-fueled rant," Severus said. "It was her faith in him that did it. She said he'd come for her, and they believed her enough that they didn't dismiss it when a lookalike turned up across the Channel."

"Well isn't that romantic." Draco sneered.

He wanted _not_ to feel anything, but he was no good at that. He'd spent so many months—what the _Prophet_ was calling the Dark Year—in terror. The Dark Lord had seen it, everybody had seen it; they'd loved it. He was a frightened fool. And he'd mourned his father already. Sort of.

He loved his father, and he hated his father. He resented his father. It had been easier to try to put it all behind him when the man was dead.

Draco yanked his stupid tie off his neck and let it drop to the floor. Severus just stood there watching him, waiting for who knew what. Granger, in a remarkable show of tact (for once), had left the room.

Severus's Cooling Charm hit him just when he thought he was going to throw up. And then he was sitting down, Severus's hand gripping the back of his neck just a touch too firmly for it to be soothing. It did keep him bent over, though, and that seemed to be helping with the nausea.

"My father was a drunk," Severus said, his voice a low murmur. "He used to beat my mother. Sometimes me, too, but mostly my mother."

"I never knew that," Draco said, stunned. He'd always been close with Severus, called him 'uncle,' saw him at holidays.

"He's a Muggle," Severus said. Draco didn't feel like he was going to be sick anymore, so he sat down properly and looked up at Severus. He had an odd sort of not-smile on his face. "Not somebody to be brought up in front of such prestigious persons as your parents. Unless we were very drunk, of course."

Draco tried and failed to imagine his parents and Severus in the back parlor, boneless from drink, talking about frustrations with their parents. Like he and his friends so many summers ago.

"I always hated my father. For as long as I can remember," Severus said. He sat down in one of the other chairs, not quite making eye contact. "For hurting my mother, for being a horrible father, for being a Muggle."

Draco nodded. Apart from the drinking and the abuse, he'd already known all that.

"I see him every year, though," Severus said. Draco blinked, eyes darting up to Severus's face. "He's not a good person. He's not a _likeable_ person. I don't like him." Severus finally looked him in the eye, expression difficult to read. "I do love him, though. He's my father."

"I don't—" Draco began, but Severus kept talking.

"There were good times. When there was actually money, or when he'd had a good day at work." Severus smirked, but it looked like it hurt. "And my mother did love him. Hell if I know why, but she loved him beyond all reason. She chose to stay no matter how many other options were given her, no matter what he did."

"You're telling me it's okay to be glad that my father isn't dead even though he's a horrible person who deserves to rot in Azkaban for the rest of his life?" Draco asked, then startled when Severus laughed.

"Yes, more or less," he said.

"You said you still see him every year?"

"He's in a Muggle prison. I visit him on his birthday."


	21. Severus, August 2000

Her help had been invaluable in setting up the Cauldron and Kettle. And he didn't have to teach dunderheaded swine any longer. Just her.

It should have been difficult. He should have been despised, he should've had to struggle against his own reputation (those dunderheaded swine were now customers, after all). Instead, she spun the story for him. Who better to buy potions from than the man who had taught most of the other brewers in the country's apothecaries? And he had war hero status. Somehow she spun that into _reclusive_ war hero status, working his penchant for hiding from customers in the back room brewing all day—people actually lingered around the shop, filling up their baskets, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. And she was always there, sparkly and convivial, at the register, chatting with the customers, suggesting variations on their purchases, driving sales.

The world was mostly the same. The Ministry was full of idiots. The wizarding world at large still thought it was the Victorian Age. The Weasleys were redheads. The sight of Harry Potter made something uncomfortable twist in his gut.

But his world was different. He was in a bright apothecary, _his own place_ , doing something he loved. He didn't have to talk to anybody he didn't want to. (Hell, most days Hermione was the only one he laid eyes on besides the cat-kneazle.) He had money. He had a comfortable, not-shabby, clean flat above his shop. He cooked for himself instead of trying to stomach the house elves' overly heavy fare.

"You, sir, were woolgathering," Hermione said. She was standing right in front of him, close enough to touch, grinning up at him.

She'd finally gained a bit of weight. For the first two years after the war, she'd been a starved little thing. He'd feared that the war had permanently stunted her, but she'd finally filled out properly. Mrs. Weasley liked to take credit, but Severus knew better; Hermione had crafted her own vitamin-nutrient supplement, with Invigorating Draught as a base. They'd sold the patent to St. Mungo's to use with malnourished patients. (They'd made a small fortune.)

"And you're doing it again."

"What?"

"Woolgathering."

"I don't need any wool."

"No. You've got plenty between your ears."

He glared. She smiled. (She did that a lot.)

"What are you thinking about?"

"You've gained weight."

"That's rude."

"It would be if I didn't know you spent the last eighteen months working out a potion for it."

She bit her lip. He rolled his eyes.

"You look fine, Hermione. You asked me what I was thinking about—I was thinking of the potion, and how you finally look like you're not a fugitive, and that we should use the money on the cauldrons."

"You don't want to invest it?"

"In what? The economy is in tatters. _Somebody_ robbed the premiere wizarding bank and got away with it. People are keeping their money in their mattresses. The only businesses that are growing are the ones that cater to the day-to-day."

"What about the Muggle markets?"

"Hell no. Too unpredictable. And then you have to factor in goblin-controlled exchange rates, and track Muggle financial trends that don't otherwise affect _anything_ …"

"Okay, okay. It was just a suggestion."

"What did you want to invest in?"

"What?"

"You wouldn't have said anything if you didn't have something in mind."

"No. Nothing. Let's get new cauldrons."

He scowled. Now he was going to have to poke around her workspace for clues. That meant venturing out to the front of the shop when she wasn't there. And that meant having to see—and, worse, speak to—people. Possibly Potter. Or a Weasley.

They'd left him alone for a year. He'd just been getting settled in his new premises when they'd begun coming around. Trying to apologize. Trying to connect.

He didn't want to hear it. It was the past. They were already connected enough.

"Have you picked them out yet?"

"What?"

"The cauldrons you want."

"What?"

"You could breed a sheep with all that wool!"

"We may want to use the money to patch the holes in your knowledge of animal husbandry."

"I don't believe there are enough books on the subject to put a dent in the sum."

She was giddy. She'd done well on a project and was reaping the reward now. Money to spend. Safe, secure, and with enough gold lining their pockets that they didn't need to worry about the poor state of the economy, the slow trickle of business.

He could breathe easy when she was like this. There were times when she was tense—when somebody came through who stirred up the mess from the war—or when she was sad. He had to treat her delicately on the days when she was sad, and it annoyed him because he didn't like her to be sad. But he did it anyway.

He'd be dead if she hadn't cared. The witch didn't know how not to care, how to let things bounce off without leaving a dent. He had half a mind to submit one of her papers to the German Consortium, except they'd probably love it. (Wankers.)

"Here."

He really was woolgathering a bit much if she'd left the room and come back while he was staring into space. He cleared his throat.

"What is this for?"

"The cauldrons."

"I thought we were going to invest the money."

"You want cauldrons."

"You want to invest it."

"You're the master. You get to choose what we do with the money."

"It's your money. Buy what you want."

"I want cauldrons," she said, and matched his glare with one of her own.


	22. Filius, November 2019

Filius Flitwick had done the math the moment he'd finished dealing with his Ravenclaws in the hospital wing. Simon was a sixth year; he'd be seventeen in February. He couldn't think of a single witch Severus had paid particular attention to around that time, let alone somebody he might've married. He'd been around to rebuild the castle, stayed at Hogwarts for just two more school years, then he'd been off setting up his apothecary. He'd taken Granger as an apprentice, and then he'd settled into that separate life he'd made for himself. Granger had gone to the Ministry after her apprenticeship, and apparently he'd taken on the name Tobias Prince.

"I can't think of a single likely witch," Filius said, thumping his fist on the armrest of his chair. They were in his office (hers had too many portraits who all wanted to weigh in), discussing the encounter. It had been a month.

"Me neither." Minerva sighed.

He'd even owled Granger, since she'd been his apprentice around the time and would likely have known if Severus had been seeing someone. Nothing had come of it, though. Gryffindors were no good at reading between the lines, and Granger had merely responded at length to the surface of his letter.

Filius's charmed teapot hovered over to her cup then his, refilling them.

"He just… he doesn't _like_ people. Certainly not enough to—well… I'm sure he can be charming when he wants – _ahem_ —but he married the witch," Filius said.

"Maybe it's somebody we don't know," Minerva suggested. "Somebody from the Guild of Potioneers?"

"He doesn't get along with them, either."

"He didn't used to. Have you seen all that he's published in the last decade, though? I looked him up. He's been busy, especially considering he's been running a shop and raising children." Minerva smirked, blowing across the surface of her tea before taking a sip. Then she added, "Perhaps he had a backlog. I know Dumbledore asked him to keep a low profile during the war, even between the wars."

"And I suppose a little multitasking is right up his alley after all the pressure he handled," Filius conceded, then shook his head. "Merlin, but the Prince children are so _normal_."


	23. Hermione, December 2000

Hermione moved from shelf to shelf, methodically straightening bottles and vials while she took inventory. It was two days until Christmas, and the Cauldron and Kettle was utterly quiet. The whole of Vertick Alley was quiet, actually. There had been heavy snow last night, and the place was blanketed in white; nobody seemed to want to disturb the picture-perfect snow.

Hermione checked off the last of the pre-made potions on her list and moved toward the back of the store to take a tally of the raw and semi-prepared ingredients stored back there. (Away from the windows and the potentially ingredient-altering sunlight.)

Naturally, that was when the Floo wooshed, green light flickering around the room.

"Hello," Hermione called, quickly making a note on her clipboard since they were down to six sachets of dried moonflower stems. They'd need to collect more before the next quarter moon. "I'll be right with you."

She'd fallen into the sales role at Severus's shop remarkably easily. She tried to be pleasant and helpful, and if somebody was rude usually getting kind of quiet at staring at them reminded them just who she was. It was nice, sometimes, that the Wizarding community of Britain was small enough to have a reputation.

"Dad," Hermione said, coming to a full stop when she rounded the last shelf and saw her father standing in front of the fireplace. He looked uncertain, out of place. Her mother had moved into the shop a few paces to look at the bottles on the nearest shelf. "Mum."

They were both covered in soot. She'd have to make a note to see about finding a good chimney sweep.

"We came through from the Leaky Cauldron," her dad said. He pulled his hat off, generating a black cloud of particles. His hair was cropped short and entirely gray. It stood out as the only soot-free part of him.

Without thinking, Hermione flicked her wand at both of them to clear away the mess. She froze when they did, fighting the urge to burst into tears at the way they'd flinched.

"Thank you, Dearest," her mum said in that strained way she did. Like when Hermione had corrected their grammar when she was too small to realize that people didn't like to be corrected.

"Sorry," she said. "Habit."

"Quite," her mum said.

There was a horrible, stilted moment of silence. She hadn't talked to either of them since the wedding. They'd only just begun to forgive her for everything that she'd done to them to keep them safe during the war, and then she'd arrived on their doorstep with Severus asking them to be witnesses at their wedding. No priest, no white dress, no relatives, no friends. Just them signing some paperwork.

They'd argued. They'd shouted and told Severus to leave. Hermione had left with him. But her parents had still come to the wedding. They'd arrived, awkward and stiff, to witness for them. They hadn't spoken to her since and it had been a year.

"We've been getting your letters," her dad said. "You seem to be doing well."

"Yes. The shop has been very successful. And I'm learning a lot. I've brewed almost every single potion we sell now."

Severus was working her up to brewing Wolfsbane by herself. She'd brewed parts of it with his supervision, and he'd stepped in for the more complicated parts last month. This month, she'd do it all herself. And if she mess it up, the dozens of werewolves that had come to rely on them for the brew would have to scramble to provide another provider. Or worse.

"Hermione," Severus said distractedly, the door at the back thumping closed behind him. "Have you seen—oh."

He stopped short when he reached the front of the shop, eyes darting from face to face.

"Severus," she said, striving for her voice not to be as high and tense as it wanted to be, "Look who's just arrived."

It was probably better that he was in shirtsleeves. He looked much less stiff and formal that way. And his hair was pulled back—he must've been brewing—which would win him a few points with her mother. She didn't approve of long-haired men.

Hermione rather liked his long hair.


	24. Simon, Nov 2019

Simon frowned at the letter, and was acutely aware that the headmistress and his Head of House were both watching him. They'd been doing that ever since they'd met Dad. Neither had said anything to him or Stella—nor to any of the other staff, so far as he could tell—but they… _watched_.

His parents had always seemed to have a sixth-sense for being watched. He'd assumed it was just another thing that came from the war, like being able to draw their wands freakishly fast or getting twitchy when they weren't able to see all the exits. In the past two days, however, he'd learned that being able to sense he was being watched was something to be come by simply by being watched a lot. It was hard to ignore, hard not to notice, when the pressure of eyes on the back of his head was constant.

"Was he really that mad?" Stella asked from beside him, snapping Simon out of his distraction. They'd had a few long conversations since Dad had been in the school—he didn't want her blindsided by Flitwick or a letter from home, after all.

"He says if anything comes up before we hear from him again, contact Uncle George. He and Mum are both going to be in America."

"America? On holiday?"

"No. Work."

"He didn't pick up the shop and bring it to America, Simon," Stella said blandly. He elbowed her but she didn't react.

"He's consulting on her project."

"Cool. Wish they'd take us with."

Simon didn't say anything. It wasn't unusual for Dad to be called in by private companies or the Ministry for consulting work, usually on Dark Magic but also on Potions or mind magic. He could've had his pick of jobs after the war, but he'd chosen to open the apothecary and submerse himself in obscurity to have his family in private. It was sort of romantic. (Simon mostly tried not to think about it, because it either made him mad or it made him think of his parents doing couple-y things, which was gross.)

"Remember when they went to Venice for a month?" Stella asked, picking apart her dinner roll. "It was summer, they _could've_ taken us. But no. Instead of helping Dad out around _his_ shop, it was helping Uncle George out around _his_ shop. And that awful week with Gran and Grandad."

Simon smiled. The week with their Muggle grandparents had been a bit of a culture shock, but he'd found it interesting where Stella had found it tedious. And working at Weasley Wizard Wheezes with Uncle George had been a riot.

"Stop smiling, Simon. You're an idiot."

He elbowed her again, rising from the table and shoving the letter in the pocket of his robes. He had agreed to tutor a few third years in the library right after dinner and he had things to organize before he met with them. And then he had his own homework.


	25. Severus, December 1994

Granger attended the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum. She looked strangely grown-up, and at the same time much too young.

The boy conflicted him. Krum was a good student. He almost seemed to resent his own fame, or at the very least he tolerated it will less strutting that Potter did. Krum was touching _his_ soul mate, though. Dancing with her. Making her smile. He was glad that somebody was, since she was "one of the boys" to seemingly everyone in her year, but there was that resented little part of him that whispered that she was _his_.


	26. Severus, summer 1996

Granger was only included because the other option was including Moody, and that was unacceptable.

The summer had been interminable. He'd run himself ragged, giving his days to the Order and his nights to the Dark Lord, squeezing in a few hours of sleep with Dumbledore's Time Turner. By the end of the summer, he was taking Granger with him when he Turned back the day so that she could sleep, too.

And wasn't that twisted.

He'd liked her the least in the beginning. Part of it was pure resistance, of course. This girl-child who was less a child than he'd realized, and always the conversation that hadn't happened lingering between them.

"Hardly," he'd said, and then he'd left. He hadn't seen her until they were both at the Burrow, him for a meeting and her because she was spending the summer with the Weasleys. She hadn't brought it up, and he certainly didn't intend to. So it just… lingered.

* * *

His use of the Time Turner had begun in earnest the first week into the summer break. The Dark Lord had begun requesting poisons, and the poisons were put in Muggle water supplies, diluted but still effective. The antidotes had to be disguised as Muggle tablets, the bottles spelled so that the chemists gave them out where they were needed. The headmaster had insisted he choose assistants. When he'd grudgingly agreed that Hestia Jones could be allowed in the shed-turned-potions-laboratory, the headmaster had also forced Fred and George Weasley on him and tried to send Moody, too—at which point Severus had, in desperation, suggested Granger.

He'd had the four of them in the lab preparing ingredients and stirring while he did the difficult bits, namely reducing and dehydrating the potions down into tablets without blowing anything up or losing potency.

A few weeks in the shed, all of them wearing heavy aprons, gloves, goggles and grease standard to the level of potions they were brewing. In addition to the antidotes, there were the standard healing potions for the Order.

By the end of the summer, it was impossible to be in the same room as her. Even when they weren't alone, it was difficult. He worked so hard to be icy, withdrawn, but the witch was fire. She couldn't know it, of course. He did his utmost to keep distance between them, to remain aloof, to appear to find their connection tiresome. But he knew there were tells—she'd overheard him criticizing the twins' dicing only moments before setting her to the task, and she was smart enough to realize the significance of her being the only one he allowed in the shed alone.

The true difficulties came when he encountered her outside the shed, where they had a purpose to focus on—when he saw her reading and allowed himself to be drawn into conversation about the topic in the pages, or when she went off on some new Ministerial decree mentioned in the _Prophet_ (and he was careful that she never knew he had to go look up half the things she was talking about when she got going on Wizarding Law…).

The undoing of all that careful distance, all the snide comments, was the book. Under Polyjuice, he chaperoned an outing to Diagon Alley for school supplies near the end of the summer. He ended up in Flourish & Blott's with her, hovering nearby while she pulled books off the shelves. She was taking so long that he moved ahead, yanking the books from her course list off the shelves and dumping them into her basket. She thanked him, then kept wandering and looking at books. He'd watched what she'd lingered over, giving his opinion on her choices with his eyebrows. And then she'd found one that she wanted, then put it back because it was too expensive. And he'd bought it for her because he was an idiot. He'd left it stacked with the rest of her books in her room to be discovered later, but it wouldn't matter; she'd know he was the one who'd bought it for her.


	27. Severus, June 1998

Severus woke first, and was confused. There was a woman in his bed; he'd pulled her tight to his chest in his sleep. He never did that. Hell, he never took anybody to bed. Not since…

It was Granger. Hermione Granger was in his bed, in his arms. Her wild hair tickled his shoulder.

He'd just come to terms with the idea when she woke, starting violently and struggling, half-awake, before going still. He ran his hand along her back, holding her without constricting her.

"Severus," she said, her voice breathy with relief, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face against his neck. His heart raced. He held her tighter; he'd never let her go.

He kissed her. Their tongues tangled, and their hands did a frantic sort of dance, never settling on any one place for more than a breath. He shifted so he was on top of her, and then he was _in_ her. She arched and sighed, hands pulling on his shoulders and back. She was hot and wet and tight, clenching around him as he slid. They never stopped kissing.

He made himself wait. He made himself hold out until, at last, she screamed his name. Her quim pulsed around him, pulled at him, pulled him over the edge.

He was on top of her, barely keeping the worst of his weight off her with his elbows on either side of her head. Her knees rose on either side of his hips, her hands still on his back. She smiled and he shuddered.

They stayed in bed for hours. Kissing, touching, holding. They made love.

Eventually, he gave her a tour of the crappy little house he'd inherited. He drew back the curtains so that she could see the brown-gray neighborhood outside. The house was sparse and dreary, dusty in all the corners, the yard was overgrown.

"It's a heap," he said, "but you're welcome here whenever you want to be."

He held out one of the spare keys, and she smiled before she kissed him and dragged him back to bed.


	28. Severus, June 1995

On the night the Dark Lord returned, his arm burned and the first thing he thought of was Granger.

Not Potter, not Dumbledore. Granger.

Nobody could know about Granger.

Potter was probably dead.

Dumbledore was going to ask him to return to the Dark Lord.

His life was going to become infinitely more miserable.

Nobody could know about Granger. She had to stay safe. She was Muggle-born, and she was close to Potter. She'd want to fight.

She had to be kept safe.

He'd been well on his way to hyperventilating when Minerva had put her hand on his arm.

"Something is wrong," he hissed. They'd been patrolling the edge of the maze, on the lookout for more red sparks.

"What is it?"

"My Mark is burning," he said. He desperately wanted to roll up his sleeve and have a look at it. It had been growing darker as the school year progressed; he'd been dreading the moment it burned again. "I'm being Summoned."

"Potter…"

"I don't know." He took a few steps back from the nearest hedge, trying to get a better view. The lot of it had been enchanted with mirroring charms so that the spectators near the entrance of the maze could view the goings-on inside (it would've been a rather boring competition without anything to watch but a bunch of overgrown bushes), but the charms weren't directed at them on the far side.

"Should we call a halt?"

"I don't know," he repeated, gritting his teeth.

"I'll go tell Dumbledore, at least."

"He's sitting with Karkaroff. He likely already knows."


	29. Severus, March 1999

Life after the war should have been difficult. He'd expected it to be difficult. Well. After he'd come around to the idea of life after the war—the idea of not dying in the war—he hadn't expected… this.

Life was very routine, and very pleasant. There were meals and rounds, teaching and marking. He spoke to Hermione in the library more often than was prudent; she'd even stopped by his office a few times, telling him the staff would think it was odd if they avoided each other after being so close over the summer. He didn't fight her on it; hell, he began visiting her in the sitting room she shared with Draco.

He could have easily disappeared back into Hogwarts after the war, continued being the hated professor, safe in his classroom and office and the familiarity of the Great Hall. She'd drawn him out, though. And, since she and Draco had been assigned to share the sitting room, she forced him to reconnect with his godson when he visited her. And when they'd been helping to repair the castle, it had been her that met him in the staff lounge, forced him to see other people, rather than finding him in his office and staying hidden away with him.

And now she was talking about Potions. She wanted to apprentice in Potions; she wanted her Mastery. She'd successfully avoided Slughorn and refused to ask him to apprentice her, but she was open to the idea of Willoughby. Severus hated the thought of it. Young, attractive, good ol' "Art" spending _years_ with her? He didn't like the idea of her in the man's classroom, let alone cohabitating a suite as masters and apprentices at Hogwarts would.

"Well, he's not my first choice, of course," she said, defensive, when it came up again.

"No?"

" _No_ ," she said, rolling her eyes at him. He hated it when she did that, and he was glad Draco was helping in the hospital wing again. (He'd decided to pursue Healing, and Poppy had taken him under her wing.) " _You_ are my first choice, you daft man. But—"

He'd cut her off with a kiss because she'd said "you daft man" so damned fondly, and she'd said he was her first choice, and he just had to kiss her. He hadn't kissed her in too long. For a short stretch of time in the summer, he'd been able to kiss her whenever he felt like it for as long as he'd felt like it, but that had ended with the return of school routines.

He'd carried her across to her bedroom and slammed the door behind them. Draco had smirked knowingly when they'd emerged the next morning, rushing because they were very nearly late for breakfast.


	30. Hermione, June 1996

Her concept of time was blurry at best. She felt as though she'd been in the hospital wing for weeks and weeks, and at the same time it seemed like she'd been running through the Department of Mysteries, terrified, only moments before.

The nightmares didn't help any.

Professor Snape seemed to be her most regular visitor, though she suspected she only thought so because he woke her up each time to make her drink potions. Disgusting, lumpy potions that were like choking down runny, blood-flavored cottage cheese.

* * *

Professor McGonagall brought her books. There was an enormous stack of them, and she wiled away a very pleasant day reading them. She wasn't allowed to move any more than she could help, so she wasn't even allowed to do homework. Just read. If her chest hadn't ached so badly, it would've been her own little slice of heaven.

Most of the books were those she'd seen before, though they appeared to be from Professor McGonagall's private collection instead of the school library. There was a book or two from each subject she had a class in, a short stack of Wizarding paperbacks, and a random smattering of other titles from various disciplines. There was even a book of old love spells that Hermione left at the bottom of the stack, wondering why in the world her professor would think she'd be interested in the topic. She wasn't Lavender Brown, after all.

* * *

She'd eventually caved in. Madam Pomfrey had checked her one last time and said goodnight, but her chest had ached too badly for her to settle into sleep, and so Hermione had picked up the one book she hadn't looked at yet and found herself immediately engrossed. It wasn't full of love spells after all, but a surprisingly scientific study in magical connections between couples.

Some of the experiments were horribly gruesome and she very much doubted that the couples in question had consented. She was too interested in the topic to set the book aside, though.

There was truly such a thing as soul mates. ("Soul pairs," the author called them.) It was like when she'd first walked down Diagon Alley and seen the broomstick shop. There _really were_ witches and wizards, and they _really did_ fly around on broomsticks. It was marvelous. Magical in that way that had nothing to do with magic as she'd come to know it.

The first few chapters had been engrossing simply because she'd never come across the topic in any sort of academic form. She'd heard it mentioned that the Malfoys were soul mates, but she'd thought it was just talk.

" _The first and most-often missed sign of a soul pair is the telltale thumps_ ," the book said. " _Some call it 'love at first sight,' but that is a misnomer. It is merely a connection. Like calling to like, soul to soul, magic to magic._ "

It reminded her of the first time she'd set foot in the Great Hall. Her heart had beat hard in her chest as she'd looked around at the tables full of other students of magic, at the enchanted ceiling, at the High Table with the professors up there to _teach_ her to be a proper witch. Her heart had thudded hard in her chest, and she'd known she was in the right place.

" _Other signs include an affinity of magic—inability to ward one's soul mate in or out, for example—and the racing heart at first physical contact_."

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had a rather adorable story about that. They'd been eleven when they'd met, and they hadn't noticed those telltale thumps. They'd been fourteen or so when they'd first brushed hands at the dinner table, though. Mr. Weasley had almost passed out, and Mrs. Weasley (Miss Prewett, then) had squealed like she'd been hexed. Hermione had always imagined Mrs. Weasley pressing her hand to her bosom the way she did now when one of her children did something vaguely alarming, but Ron said he'd been told she'd punched her brother Gideon because she'd thought it was his fault. They hadn't actually been sure, since they had been so young when those markers had passed, until they'd gotten married and the seal on their marriage license from the Ministry had reflected their status.

The book— _Ways of the Heart_ by Romanov—was entirely lacking in the Ministerial aspect of soul mates. How did they know? Was there a test? Some sort of proof? There had to be, but the book didn't provide any answers.

Hermione wished she was allowed to make a note so that she'd remember to check.

* * *

She'd drifted a bit, not really sleeping but not reading any more either.

When she came around again, she was completely certain of one thing: She'd felt those telltale thumps in the Great Hall her first night at Hogwarts when she'd first seen Professor Snape.

Even though it hurt, she stretched over and grabbed her wand off the bedside table so that she could conjure ink and parchment. She had notes to make.


	31. Severus, May 1998

He rolled over, the soreness in his neck bringing him fully awake. He hissed, opened his eyes, and there she was. She lay on her side on the bed next to him, separated by a few feet of empty space in the darkness. Her eyes were open, too; she looked back at him.

"You could have killed us both," he said, his voice scratchy and hoarse, painful, but he was able to speak and that was an improvement. She beamed at him in an achy, sleepy sort of way.

"But I didn't." Her voice was as bad as his.

He scowled, but that had lost its power over her years ago.

"You're mad."

"I'm not," she said matter-of-factly. "I took a calculated risk."

"You put _yourself_ at risk."

"I knew you'd be able to do it."

"You trust me too much."

She smiled at him again, but this time there was sadness in it.

"Go to sleep," she said. "The healers will come and yell at us again."

As if they were a pair of snotty children whispering in the dark when they should be sleeping.

She lay back and closed her eyes, and he just watched her. She'd saved his life, and then she'd saved his voice. The snake had all but ripped his larynx out; the best spell to heal it was one that he'd used on Draco not so very long ago to heal his wounds from _Sectumsempra_. She hadn't known the incantation or the melody of the chant well enough to feel comfortably tackling it. So instead she'd enacted several spells and sealed the lot of it with blood from their thumbs, essentially switching places with him. She took his injury and he was able to sing the incantation. If it hadn't worked, if he hadn't been able to close the wounds and mend her throat in the time allotted, they both would've kept the injury.

She'd been the only one to stay with him. Others had visited, but she'd _stayed_. She'd transfigured the bed she now slept in into a desk and threw books and parchment all over it.

"I still can't believe we survived most of the time," she said from the darkness, and he glanced over at her again. She was staring at the ceiling.

He wasn't sure if she was talking about her gambit or the war itself, but he agreed either way.


	32. Severus, 1992

Granger spent most of her second year in the hospital wing. He'd just worked himself around to the idea of (maybe) anticipating the future, and she'd almost died. Twice.

She'd stolen from his ingredient stores, which was infuriating. She was the only one who could've done it, too, since his wards were strong enough to keep away even the headmaster. She was his soul mate, though. His magic knew her magic, accepted her magic, embraced it. His wards recognized her without so much as a ripple, allowing her through. And then she'd nearly killed herself Polyjuicing into a cat. (It was an accident, he was sure, though Poppy never did get the full story out of her. Really, she was just very, very lucky the transformation had faltered as it had, and she'd ended up with ears and a tail instead of, say, the heart of a cat trying to pump enough blood to run a human body.)

He'd barely gotten over the cat incident when she'd been Petrified. He'd never been so glad Minerva knew everything as that night, since she'd pulled him into an empty classroom to tell him the news rather than letting him find out with the rest of the staff.


	33. Hermione, January 2000

For a long time, she hadn't questioned any of it. She hadn't wondered about it. She had ignored her misgivings—and there hadn't been many, so it had been relatively easy—and just let it happen.

It was taboo, of course. Apprentice-master relationships were strictly not allowed by every Guild, including the Potioneers' Guild. Where student-teacher scandal led to criminal investigations, an apprentice-master relationship ruined both involved in their chosen field, resulting in the immediate rescinding of titles, sacking from positions, and waiving of all certificates and qualifications. And that was just before the Guild inquiry began, looking over all previous projects for foul-play. An apprentice-master relationship, if discovered, meant they'd never work in their field of expertise again.

There wasn't even a good excuse to tell herself about it. There hadn't been cauldron fumes or an experiment gone awry. They hadn't been drinking.

They couldn't blame their affinity, either. They'd kept well enough away while she'd been his student (barring that evening she told him he was daft).


	34. Hermione, February 2003

Their friends and family (with the exception of Draco, though he never said anything) thought they lived in separate rooms above his shop (located in Vertick Alley, Diagon Alley's countryside cousin). When there were visitors, Hermione made her room look used, rumpled the bedding and left out a book or teacup, and Severus tidied his side.

They'd had a plan. She had half a year left before her apprenticeship was completed, and then they could begin the slow public dance of courtship. She'd go into research, but she'd still live above his shop. She'd confide in her friends (preferably in public spaces where it could be overheard) that she would miss him if she moved out. She would be seen in her presence at the various galas they were all invited to following the war, and he would not appear to be in pain. Within six months, they could've sold the idea of their relationship to the papers; the Guild would do a cursory examination of her apprenticeship and find nothing (because they were both very good at paperwork, even when they were distracted). They could be married in a Wizarding ceremony by the following Christmas.

Instead, some clever charms work hid her growing pregnancy, and the looming end of her apprenticeship excused her absence among her friends. George Weasley was the only one to stumble upon the secret, and Severus made him swear a wand oath not to tell.

Simon (because they liked the name) Wendell (for her father) George (because he'd become a close friend, wand oath and all) Prince (for Severus's mother) Snape was born eight months after her apprenticeship concluded.

So began the ruse.


	35. Hermione, December 2020

Hermione sat in the antechamber sipping distractedly at the flavorless tea. She couldn't hear a thing going on in the main gathering room, and it bothered her. She hadn't expected to be allowed to listen, but still.

Severus was furious. He was just as likely to verbally eviscerate the Board and make things worse as he was to talk the lot of them into a corner and get them both out of the mess on a technicality.

The last time she'd been sent to the antechamber to sit in such stressful silence was when they were reviewing her application to the Guild. It was two days after she'd completed her apprenticeship; she'd had Severus's ring on her necklace and his child in her womb. She'd sat in the very same chair wondering what they were talking about, what was taking so long—it had turned out that they'd been discussing a conference in Guam one of the members had been to over the previous weekend, but she hadn't known that at the time.

Hermione very much doubted the Board was talking about academic conferences in Guam this time.


	36. Hermione, October 1999

Hermione slowly shifted in his lap, stretching out so her feet her almost over the far armrest, relaxing against him, wedging her shoulder between his legs, settling in. He was warm and solid beneath her, a physical anchor to the here and now.

During daylight hours, there was enough to keep her mind occupied so that her thoughts didn't draw back to the war. They hadn't done that so much the year before. She'd been studying for her N.E.W.T. s and trying to decide on a plan for her future and (of all things) cementing the friendship with Draco that had begun at St. Mungo's. Now, with her years as a student at Hogwarts behind her, her friends moved on from the castle (except for Neville, of course), and her days entirely devoted to her area of study, nights and evenings often found her adrift.

She lay against him for awhile. She did every night. After dinner, they retired to his sitting room, and they always ended up reclining together on his ratty old sofa. At some point, it had become part of their ritual. Reading. Watching the fire together.

She drowsed for a while. Severus was reading some old bit of his own research, contemplating publishing. He'd had her brewing the bases for the project as part of her practical practice; it was all simple enough that she could work on it while he taught his classes. It was interesting enough, and it really was good practice even if it wasn't so complex.

She knew the moment his attention wandered from his notes. He hardened beneath her cheek, and she smirked to herself. She'd been waiting for it. This was part of their ritual, too.

Hermione unfastened his trousers, smirking up at him when his cock leaped free of the cloth. She kissed along his shaft before taking the head of his cock in her mouth and sucking gently. Severus groaned deep in his throat, shifting so that one leg was on the floor bracing him. Hermione shifted, too, wrapping one hand around his shaft while her tongue played over the tip, teased at his foreskin.

"Gods," he said. " _Where_ did you learn how to do this?" His fingers tangled in her hair, angling her chin just a bit so that when she leaned forward to take more of him in her mouth he whimpered. "I'm going to geld whatever young man has had his cock in your mouth."

"I learned the theory from a book," she said, kissing the tip and swirling her tongue against him. He gasped and shivered. "You've been present for all the _practical_ applications."

" _Fuck_ ," he said, distracted from any further conversation when she opened her throat up.


	37. Percy, September 2020

"I'll need you to cancel anything on the schedule for the next hour," Percy told his assistant. The man—Dmitri Sorenson—nodded reluctantly. "Schedule me for working over lunches this week if you need to, just clear out the hour."

"Yes, sir."

Percy nodded and carried on into his office, tossing his cloak in the direction of the stand as he went. The thing caught it deftly and shook it out before hanging it on the peg so that it wouldn't wrinkle.

Percy loved his job. It wasn't where he'd envisioned himself back in school, but he'd bollocksed up the chance to be Minister of Magic with more than one poor choice early in the war. He was the Senior Ambassador to the International Confederation of Wizards, and that was something to be proud of. He'd worked hard for it. He had an assistant, an undersecretary, and an aid all his own, not to mention the two Junior Ambassadors (and their staff) who answered to him. He'd Made It.

It was one of those days where he'd have to make that work for him. He'd have to pull every string he had hold of if he wanted this to work. And he truly did want this to work.

He'd always thought she'd be rather good for the job.

Percy checked his watch, and quickly pulled the bottle of Ogden's he kept in the bottom drawer out of his desk, pouring a generous shot into a Conjured glass. He added a Cushioning Charm to the guest chair, too.

He'd just finished Duplicating the necessary documents when he heard her approach. The staccato clack of her Muggle high-heeled shoes on the stone floors, the whisper of Ministry memos trailing in her wake.

Hermione Granger in a temper was a magnificent thing.

"They told the bloody _papers_ before they thought to tell _me_ ," she said, voice not quite quaking with her fury. Percy held out the shot he'd poured her and she slugged it back. He thought it best not to offer her another outright, but he left the bottle out.

"That's bad form," he said blandly.

"Damn right it is. I've already filed a suit."

"Naturally."

She threw herself down into the guest chair, her accompanying memos and box of personal affects floating awkwardly over her shoulder. She tossed the newspaper she'd had in her hand back at the jumble of it all, missing the box so that it scattered across his floor. The front page headline read, _Unspeakable Granger Sacked!_ Somebody had found a relatively recent photo of her, this one from the Ministry Atrium, her whole attention on the dossier in her hands. It was a deliberate choice, her face bent down over her files, cropped for the paper so that it could almost be interpreted as averting eye contact with the reader. Not to mention that she'd been photographed in her Unspeakable robes, which she'd just been formally stripped of; she was in a Muggle skirt and blouse now, official robes confiscated. (If she'd been anybody else, she would've been escorted from the building.)

Percy sat down behind his desk, tidying the documents she'd need into a neat stack. She watched without any particular interest, mouth set solidly in a frown. She poured herself another shot and drank it before Vanishing the glass, staring at his cloak stand all the while.

"What are you doing, Percy?" she finally asked. He put the Ogden's away and Summoned his tea things to the desk before he answered.

"Absolutely nothing," he said in his best Oblivious Politician voice. "I'm merely consoling a dear friend who was sacked this morning."

He handed her the folios.

"We had tea," he said, pointedly taking a sip of the weak Ministry-issue brew.

Hermione glanced through the first few documents, and that familiar light sprang to her eyes. That daring, slightly terrifying light that had driven her to keep his kid brother alive through the worst of the war and to marry the most intimidating man Percy had ever met.

"This is the best tea I've had in a long time," she said, not so much as touching her cup.

"I've always done tea very well," he said, setting his cup aside.

Hermione deftly tucked the folios under the books and knickknacks in her box, still ignoring the memos waiting for her attention.

"Thank you, Percy," she said.

"Anytime." He smiled and stood, Vanishing the undrunk tea from both their cups before setting the tray to the side for the elves. "Will we see you at the Burrow this weekend?"

"Wouldn't miss it," she said, eyes shining.

"Good."

She left in the same whirlwind she'd blown in on, box and memos trailing behind her. He couldn't help but feel slightly bemused by it all.

Sorenson gave him a look after she'd gone, and Percy shrugged; his assistant thought it was too early to be breaking out the Ogden's. Oblivious idiot.

Hermione had left her newspaper on his floor. It gave Percy a strange sense of satisfaction to Vanish it.


	38. Hermione, March 2004

Hermione held her mug of tea up to her face, inhaling the pungent steam as she looked down at her little girl. Stella slept much better than Simon had when he was this small. She was so perfect and little, and worth every ache and pain that still lingered as she recovered from the labor.

She'd been in labor for fifteen hours. She'd felt _off_ for the last five of them. Beyond tired and raw the way she'd felt during labor with Simon. Beyond that uniquely primal, _visceral_ aching clenching of her whole being as she pushed the life she'd made into the world. She'd felt that; it was there. But something had been wrong.

Severus had sensed it, too. She had never seen him look so scared before.

Her magic had kicked in just after they'd started the c-section. She hadn't read anything about it in her research because no other witch had ever undergone something like it. She should've realized why, but she hadn't. She'd made a mistake. She'd missed something. It had almost killed her and Stella both.

"I wish you'd stay in bed," Severus said from behind her, his voice soft so as not to wake the little one. She leaned back against him without turning to check and make sure he was close. She knew he was close.

"I'm tired of bed."

"You're still recovering."

"I'm fine, Severus."

He held her tight to him, and she knew he was looking down at Stella the same as she was. He had a terrified sort of possessiveness to him these days. Like he had to reassure himself again and again that they were alive, that they were with him, that they weren't going to evaporate. Simon had been spending days at George's, and the quick Apparation back and forth to drop him off and pick him up were the only times Severus was away.

Stella squirmed, then. She opened her eyes and let out a half-hearted sort of squall. Severus picked her up, a tiny little thing in his big hands. Hermione smiled at him, and he smiled back.

Eventually, she'd talk him into relaxing. Until then, it was good to see him smile again.


	39. Hermione, May '98

Hermione had expected a comment about the bathing suit. Yes, it was summer, but she was still at Hogwarts. She'd volunteered to stay and help with repairs since she didn't have anyplace else to go—her parents were in the middle of packing up their lives in Melbourne to return to London (and they weren't exactly speaking to her, besides), staying at the Burrow or Grimmauld would be too odd, and Severus was at Hogwarts so it didn't seem right to take his offer of Spinner's End.

So, laying out on one of the big rocks by the lake in her bikini (a modest bikini, all things considered, but still a bikini), she'd expected some sort of reaction when he found her. She was trying to force herself to be comfortable with her new scars, but she didn't want to tell him that. He had more scars than she did, and she didn't want to provoke him.

"Slughorn is looking for you," he said instead of commenting on her choice of apparel. He crouched down hear her head and stared out at the lake. His knees popped and it made her smile. He was in shirtsleeves, and that made her smile, too. He was looking more and more human every day.

"Oh?"

"He's going to offer you an apprenticeship after you finish your N.E.W.T.s."

"I don't want to be his apprentice," she said firmly, closing her eyes. The mere thought was sickening.

"What are you planning after Hogwarts, then? There are no wizard universities like the Muggles have," he told her. "Apprenticeship is the next step in education—unless you're planning to work for the government. Oh, gods, Granger; don't tell me you're going to be a Ministry toady."

She laughed. "Can't you imagine it? I'll get myself a nice pink sweater set and learn to go _hem hem_." She smirked, twisting and raising a hand to block the sun so she could look at him, but he was crouched just right so that the sun was behind him and all she could see was his silhouette.

"You'd look terrible in pink."

She smiled, putting her hand down since it was useless anyway. This was the way it had been with him since fifth year, in private at least. The brewing at Grimmauld had broken down walls, and then he'd acknowledged the bit about their being soul mates. The easy camaraderie had been a surprise, even though it shouldn't have been.

"I don't know what I want to do," she said. "Before, I was considering the Ministry—don't laugh at me. There's such a disparity in rights in the wizarding world, not just Muggle-borns and pure-bloods, but house elves and centaurs and werewolves. I saw myself as their champion."

"What changed your mind?"

"House elves and centaurs don't want a champion, not as a whole. And you don't have to work for the government to improve life for werewolves. And I'd like to think I already helped change things between Muggle-borns and pure-bloods."

"I should think so."

She smiled again and sat up, crossing her legs like a pretzel and facing his profile since he was looking out over the lake again.

"You're right. I want to stay in academia. I don't know where I want to focus, though. Potions has always been at the top of my list, but not if it's with Slughorn. I'd like to focus in Arithmancy, but Professor Vector hasn't taken an apprentice in a decade and I don't know her well enough to ask for a recommendation for another Arithmancer without offending her." She sighed and shrugged when she noticed that he was watching her.

Truly, she wanted to be _his_ apprentice. He was the best in her field of choice. Apprentices and masters weren't allowed to be _together_ though, and she didn't think she could wait out the length of an apprenticeship. She could wait through her last year of schooling; they'd decided, after he'd finished shouting about blind-siding him with her enrollment, that it would be best if they kept their distance while she was his student.

"Tell me," he said at last, "are you _tanning_ out here? Thinking of the pictures in the paper already?"

She snorted. "This rock gets the best sun, true, but I was using the heat of it to relax my muscles. I'm sure any color I pick up as a side-benefit will work to my advantage, though." She fluttered her eyelashes at him, and he almost chuckled. Almost. He made that half-choked ripple of noise in his chest that she'd only managed to startle from him a few times in the last three years.

"How—" He cut himself off, shook his head, then asked anyway. "How are you doing, then? Are you so very tense?"

"It's not bad," she said. "I feel like I'm eighty in the mornings, and the stiffness starts creeping back in if I sit for too long. It's getting better, though." She paused long enough for him to nod, then narrowed her eyes at him. "And you?"

"I'm fine."

"Of course you are."

"What will you tell Slughorn?"

"I think I'll just avoid him like the plague."

"He's persistent."

"I'm sneaky."

He barked a laugh. A real laugh. Not the half-choked one, but an honest burst of amused sound from the bottoms of his lungs. It was over as quickly as it had begun. It made her smile.

"Gods, that's the understatement of the millennia."

Hermione stood and stretched, then pulled on the fluttery cotton sundress she'd worn out over the bathing suit and offered him a hand up. He didn't take it, of course.

"Have you decided what you're going to teach yet?" she asked, pretending not to have noticed the way he'd watched her while she dressed.

"Yes."

"Are you doing to _tell_ me what you're going to be teaching, or am I just going to have to find out at the Feast?"

"I almost asked for Charms just to see what she'd say."

Hermione snorted inelegantly. He smirked at her.

"Defense. I went with Defense—it's more fun to teach, and the classroom has windows."

"Priorities."

"Indeed."

They began walking toward the castle. He almost reached for her waist, but remembered not to. She almost reached for the clenched hand closest to her, but she stopped herself.

"Will Slughorn be back for Potions, then?" she asked, trying to distract them. She hoped he wasn't. He was a showboat and the favoritism with the Slug Club did more damage than Severus's Slytherin favoritism ever had.

"No. I believe that is what prompted his decision to offer you the apprenticeship—a way to keep his finger in the till, as it were."

"Did you just imply that I'm a cash register?"

He snorted. Not a laugh, not the choked-off laugh, just a snort. "You know how he is. Why give up one of the _Prophet_ 's 'Golden Trio' when he could reel her further in?"

"And now you make it sound like he's going to seduce me."

"Only into his good graces. Apparently that's desirable."

"I've heard that as well."

They parted ways at the greenhouses. He'd spotted Sprout and started muttering about a Devil's Snare for his third years, and she'd carried on into the castle. She had her own rooms for the year—all those returning to repeat their seventh year would, as there were only four of them. (She'd be sharing the common living area with one of them, though she wasn't sure which one just yet.) She had a shower, changed into a less fluttery sundress, and popped down the hall for her afternoon checkup with Poppy.


	40. Severus, February 2020

"They passed a _what_ now?" Mrs. Granger asked. Well. She shouted it, really.

"Mum," Hermione said, pleading. She glanced over her shoulder at Severus, but he only shrugged. His stepping in would likely only make things worse.

The in-laws hadn't been openly hostile with him in many years now, but they still made it obvious that they didn't quite approve of him. And they always seemed surprised when he did something nice.

Hermione launched into her explanation of the population crisis and the symposium she'd been involved it. She'd laid it out for them twice, but they didn't have the background on marriage laws of the past to draw from and it was all outrageous and completely ungrounded to them.

Severus sat on the piano bench watching his father-in-law pace. It was an upright piano like his own parents had owned, but infinitely better kept. It was glossy and in tune, as much a decoration as a household hobby.

It was things like that that made him feel apart from the Grangers. It went beyond the uneasy reception he'd always received. Little things like a proper piano, or hugging their daughter when she walked in the door. He was separate. He'd never had that.

Well, he'd never had that till Hermione. Till Hermione and Simon and Stella. And the extended family that had grown around them, spreading to include Potters and Weasleys and Malfoys, children and aunts and uncles… it was truly absurd sometimes.

"If it's going to be overturned eventually," Mr. Granger put in, "why not just wait it out? Don't file any papers. Don't move to comply at all. Just wait for it to be repealed."

"It's the high courts, Dad," Hermione said. "It will stand for at least two, maybe three, years. Minimum."

"Is that too long to wait out?"

Severus snorted, drawing all eyes to him. Hermione's were pleading again. The parents looked like they were annoyed at him for interrupting.

"Worked into the Law is a sub-clause that would bind magic of the non-compliant. They'd begin with restrictions, of course, but if we attempted to wait even a year without even making it look like we were making moves to obey the law, there would be consequences," Severus said. "Horrible things happen to wizards who are cut off from their magic."

"Whole populations of people live just fine without magic, you know," Mrs. Granger said.

Severus literally bit his tongue to keep himself from replying.

"Mum, it's different," Hermione said gently.

" _You_ even do the dishes by hand sometimes, Dearest," Mrs. Granger said.

"Just trust me, okay?" Hermione said. "It's different."

The parents frowned but must've heard the same edge to her voice that Severus did. They nodded and let the idea of non-compliance drop.


	41. Hermione, July 2002

She'd been afraid that he would be angry. She'd fucked them over, essentially. And not the fun kind of fucking.

They hadn't had that talk. The kids talk. They hadn't gotten to that part. They'd covered his wanting to open up an apothecary (and they had done so), and they had covered her wanting to apply for the Department of Mysteries (and she had not only applied, but signed a contract with them as well). They'd covered her strange need for a window over the kitchen sink, and his desire to implement a wizarding version of Muggle security cameras (touching the tip of their wands to any mirror in the house activated similarly enchanted mirrors throughout the shop and lab below so that they could see what his employees and/or customers were up to; it was a rather brilliant alteration of the Protean Charm).

They'd been using protection, too. Multiple layers of protection.

"Life always finds a way," her mother would say. Or would have said before things had gone sideways with her. Hermione didn't know what she would say now; it probably wouldn't be particularly supportive.

Instead of being disappointed, or clamming up, or withdrawing, he'd thrown her on the bed and proceeded to ravish her. And he'd done the same whenever he'd thought of it and they had a moment to spare; their talks about how the _hell_ they were going to spin it in their professional lives were sidelined until after he'd had her heels-to-the-heavens for a bit.

* * *

A/N: I had a few people ask questions/hope I'd elaborate on the bit about wizards punished by being cut off from their magic, and since I didn't plan to in the story I thought I'd put an answer out for everybody in a note here: I was building off of the idea from Fantastic Beasts. If a wizard suppresses their magic, it can turn against them or lash out of control. If a mature, trained wizard would to be cut off from their magic, I'd assume there'd be similar unhappy consequences. And that's all that I meant- if they didn't comply with the Marriage Law, the consequences would really suck.


	42. Simon, February 2020

MINISTRY PASSES MARRIAGE ACT

It was the big news, the top headline. Simon flipped past it to the back page for the Quidditch rankings first. (The Harpies had trounced the Cannons again.) It was the talk of the Hall, though, so he read the article before he headed to Transfigurations.

It didn't hit him until nearly lunch just what the Marriage Act meant. The _Prophet_ had broken it out into simplified terms—essentially, anybody between the ages of 30 and 60 who was unmarried had three months to get married, and a further two months after that to get pregnant. Couples who were currently married but childless had two months to get pregnant. Anybody who remained unattached at the end of the three-month grace period would be matched by the Ministry by some arithmantic algorithm for optimal offspring production. There were possibilities for exemptions through Healers and a few other means.

He'd just turned seventeen; the Act wouldn't affect him. From what he remembered overhearing over the summer, it would be overturned by the time it could force him to marry.

It was his parents he was worried about.


	43. Hermione, August 1998

Hermione leant back in her chair, enjoying her last night in the staff room. It had been the meeting place at the beginning of the summer, morning and evening. In the morning, those gathered in the castle for repairs would go to the staff room for breakfast and to discuss the jobs to be done. In the evening, most of them would regroup for dinner and to talk about their progress over drinks. Now the job was done, and lessons would be starting up again tomorrow; she'd be a student, and the staff room would be off-limits.

She would miss her chair. She'd adopted it as her own the first evening she'd stayed for dinner; it was perfect. Plush cushions in pale blue velvet, small compared to most armchairs in the room. It was in a corner with a lamp behind it, perfect for reading. And there was a little table next to it perfect for a drink.

Hermione rolled her eyes at herself, turning her mind back to the situation at hand. She wasn't in "her" chair tonight; she was sitting at the little table in the corner farthest from the fire and the door. It was Severus's table, according to the other teachers. He sat at it marking essays when he was sick of his office, and he sat at it during staff meetings.

On this particular evening, there were three bottles of cheap whiskey on the table between them, and a pair of shot glasses. One bottle was empty, and they'd made good headway into the second.

"Never have I ever," Severus said, then paused to think of a statement. "Never have I ever had sex with a man."

She raised an eyebrow at him and then downed her shot. He smirked at her.

"Never have I ever danced naked under a waxing crescent."

He scowled and tossed his shot back. She did, too. (They knew too much about each other for the drinking game to be properly get-to-know-you, but it was fun listening to Minerva splutter at some of their statements and who had to drink to them.)

"Never have I ever been camping."

She drank, he didn't.

"Never have I ever owned a car."

He drank, she didn't.

"Never have I ever owned a house," he said, then winced as they both drank. "Sorry."

They'd been trying to avoid anything related to the war. "Never have I ever killed anyone" would have spoiled the celebratory mood.

Hermione flapped a placating hand at him, pouring herself another shot and drinking it because she could. (Her parents hadn't died, after all; they just weren't speaking to her. And she _had_ signed the house back over to them on all the official Muggle paperwork she'd had to tamper with to make them disappear so thoroughly.)

"Never have I ever…" she said, looking around the room for inspiration. It was mostly full of teachers since term started the next day. There were a few members of the Order lingering, and one of the masons that had been brought in from Amsterdam to help with the stonework. "Never have I ever tried to apply Newton's Law of—"

"Don't start with that again," he growled, but they both drank. "Never have I ever menstruated."

She laughed and drank. Minerva shot him a look, which made him smirk after she'd looked away and wouldn't see him.

"Never have I ever brewed Wolfsbane."

"Never have I ever read _Hogwarts: A History_ cover to cover."

"Never have I ever _annotated_ a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_."

"Never have I ever fallen off a broomstick."

"Never have I ever played in a school Quidditch match."

"Never have I ever blackmailed a reporter."

"Never have I ever—"

"Oh, enough!" Minerva snapped, cutting off the game. "If you're going to drink, just drink."

"As you say, Headmistress," Severus said, saluting her with his shot and tossing it back.

"Absent friends," Hermione muttered, raising her own glass and downing it. Severus nodded and downed his next shot to the same toast.

They chatted, but the conversation turned obnoxiously maudlin, reminding them why they'd resorted to the drinking games.

"I'm going to miss this," Hermione said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs at her knees. "Is it like this during the school year?"

"Yes and no," Severus said, glancing around the room. "Less people, less drinking. More books and parchment everywhere."

"I'm going to miss my chair, too," she said, nodding in its direction. Nobody was sitting in it, but she didn't want to leave the table. It was too much fun talking to Severus, and she wasn't sure how her legs would do if she tried to walk over to it.

Severus snorted. "It's a chair."

"It's a comfortable chair."

"There are plenty of those."

She hummed noncommittally and shrugged, sipping her shot.

Arthur "Art" Willoughby, the new Potions professor, who had been making his rounds of the people in the room to introduce himself, finally made it to their table. Hermione couldn't decide if he'd been avoiding it since Severus had taught Potions for so long or if there was some other reason. She'd half hoped he would miss their table; she wanted to savor the time she had left with Severus before they didn't see much of each other.

"Hello!" Willoughby said jovially, pulling a chair up for himself and ignoring Severus's deepened scowl. "I know you, of course, Professor Snape, but I thought I should come officially introduce myself. Art Willoughby." He held out his hand to shake, and Severus made him wait. He tossed back his latest shot and poured himself a new one before he took the proffered hand. Willoughby then turned to Hermione, his smile hitching up in one corner. "And you are?"

"Hermione Granger," she said, shaking his hand perfunctorily and ignoring the way his face froze. She'd been hidden away at the school and hadn't run into people she hadn't known before she'd become a 'celebrity.' She glanced at Severus, wanting to commiserate since he'd been running into plenty of the same, but he was scowling steadily at the new Potions teacher.


	44. Hermione, Dec 2020

"Mrs. Snape," the representative said, and she didn't contradict him even though she'd never been called 'Mrs. Snape' in her life, "was there ever a point in your career as a student that you _weren't_ involved in an inappropriate relationship with Severus Snape?"

"First of all," Hermione said, bristling, "Severus Snape is my soul mate—a magically definable status that the Ministry of Magic can verify if you'd like—and therefore _any_ relationship between he and I is _appropriate_."

She stared at the representative long enough that he opened his mouth to talk, but she cut him off.

"We were not, however, 'involved' when I was _eleven_ ," she said.

"Be that as it may—" the representative began again, and again Hermione interrupted him.

"Furthermore, our conduct at Hogwarts School does _not_ fall under the purview of the Guild. The Head of Hogwarts or its Board of Governors may question us concerning any imagined infraction should they feel the situation merits further attention." She looked up at the gathered wizards and witches of the Guild. The Chair served on the Hogwarts Board of Governors as well, and he looked like he had a particularly fiery case of indigestion.

"Let us redirect, then, to your apprenticeship," the representative said too quickly, like he was trying to change the subject before anybody else noticed that he'd lost the conversation. Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, miming her husband, and the representative flushed. "Was there ever a point in your _apprenticeship_ that you weren't involved in an inappropriate relationship with Severus Snape?"

"I will point out again," Hermione said, "that, as my soul mate, there is technically no way for me to have an inappropriate relationship with Severus Snape."

"Inappropriate in the eyes of the Guild," the Chair said, grinding his teeth.

"Yes."

There was silence. Hermione sat in her assigned chair, watching them with a pleasant expression, waiting for the next question. The rest looked at her, waiting for her to say more, wondering which part of the questions they'd asked the "yes" applied to.

"Elaborate," the Chair finally said.

"Yes, there was a point in my apprenticeship during which I was not involved in an 'inappropriate relationship' with Severus."

"Elaborate _further_ ," the Chair said after another moment of quiet. She wanted to tell him that all that tooth-grinding would lead to some unfortunate dental health issues, but she didn't.

"For the first four months of my apprenticeship, Severus and I were very carefully professional. We knew we were a soul pair, the attraction was there, and we had already had 'physical congress,' as Dale is so fond of saying." She glanced down the line of seated Guild members to the wizard who had played representative during Severus's initial questioning. "I even considered seeking an apprenticeship with a different Master or Mistress, possibly even within a different discipline, because of our situation."

There were murmurs along the Board, and Hermione ducked her head to hide a smirk. It had been remarked upon quite often over the years that it was lucky she had been paired with Severus for her apprenticeship. They'd made several breakthroughs over the course of her training that she suspected the Guild wouldn't trade for all the gold in Gringotts.

"I wanted to learn from the best," she said. "And none of you can deny that Severus Snape is the best Potions Master in Britain."

Murmurs again. They agreed with her—of course, there wasn't much in the way of competition. Apart from themselves and Slughorn, there were just five other Potions Masters in Britain, three of which hadn't been Masters at the time that she'd been an apprentice.


	45. Hermione, July 1999

The first time, it was in the middle of the afternoon. They'd been talking about a paper she was putting together for a publication, her third as an apprentice though it would be her fifth total—he'd submitted several of her fifth year essays (under false names since he could hardly be seen to help a Muggle-born's career prospects) and two of them had made it to print (in the junior, up-and-coming sections, but print nonetheless).

He'd complimented her. She'd thanked him. She'd gone to kiss him on the cheek (which she'd done dozens of times by then, pretending it was an entirely platonic gesture), and he'd moved ever so slightly, not realizing she was aiming to kiss him, and instead her kiss had landed on his mouth. They should've laughed and moved away and gone on with the day. They'd laughed, they'd shifted away, and then he'd grabbed her to him and they'd snogged the living daylights out of one another.

Even after that, they could've carried on pretending. They could've talked about it, put it behind them, and pretended it had never happened. That had been the plan, after all. They'd pretend they didn't know they were soul mates, pretend that evening in the Grimmauld Place library had never happened, pretend the summer hadn't happened.

Instead, they'd carried on through the day as if nothing had happened.

The next day, mid-morning, he'd reached around her to add the last ingredient to her cauldron while she stirred. It was an act they'd performed hundreds of times. That time, she'd barely finished the potion. Her hands had been shaking, her focus all but shot—he'd stayed behind her, pressed into the line of her body, hands tracing warmth against her sides, palming her breasts.

They never talked about what they were doing. Not once. It was as if talking about it would make it real, and if it was real they would have to acknowledge that they were breaking the rules.

They talked about everything else. They talked about the research and what they were reading, friends and family, her cat-kneazle. A week of touches, of her mouth around his cock in front of the fire, of his kissing her tenderly each morning before they went to the Great Hall for breakfast, and they never mentioned it.

On the weekend, she crouched before him, licking her lips, reaching for his belt, and his hands stopped her.

"Don't tell me no," she said.

He didn't say anything. Instead, he drew her into his lap and kissed her, then picked her up and carried her to his bed. She'd slept there every night since except for three occasions when she'd been angry with him, and then he'd followed her to her bed and refused to be thrown out.

It carried on like that throughout her apprenticeship. After that last school year at Hogwarts, he'd retired and they'd moved to the flat above the Cauldron and Kettle. Nothing more was said about it. No questions, no acknowledging it. He taught her, he assessed her during the day, submitted all the proper forms to the Guild. She brewed and learned and excelled as she always did. But after supper, they shared the sofa while they read, then they shared the bed.

And then she'd missed a period


	46. Hermione, September 2020

It was everything they'd been expecting and worse. They'd taken the Floo offline, but that didn't stop the owls. Friends, colleagues, strangers—everybody had something to say to them. George sent them the latest Daydream Fudge, which was kind. Draco had written a treatise on the weather, which actually made Severus smile. The Guild sent them official notices of suspension before they'd even made it out of bed.

Severus owled his clerks and brewers, telling them they'd be closed at least for the week, that he'd pay them their average hours in the interim, and that he'd be in touch, then he posted a giant CLOSED sign on the door and refused to answer any knocks.

"This is absurd," Hermione said, handing him his mug so that she could wrap both her hands around hers. Good, hot tea. It was supposed to be soothing, and it did feel nice on her hands, but she still felt caged-in and adrift. There was a crowd outside the shop, people just loitering and watching the windows.

"Any news from the school?"

"Flitwick said he'd send them home if he thought it would help," Hermione said. "It's probably better for them there, though."

"The wards will keep the press out."

"So will ours," she said, bumping his hip gently with hers.

"Do you think it would be better or worse if I went out there and starting cursing them?" he asked.

Hermione laughed.


	47. Hermione, October 2017

The Howler arrived on a Saturday evening. She hadn't been expecting it, though she had been dreading it. It had only been a matter of time.

Over the years, a few friends had discovered their secret. Draco had been the first. Then George (and they _had_ eventually released him from the wand oath of secrecy, just for the principle of it), and then Harry and Ginny. Fred, then Fred's wife. And Poppy Pomfrey, who had Flooed the Cauldron and Kettle directly after Simon's Sorting.

She hadn't even thought of the secret they'd been keeping from their children.

Well. It wasn't that they were keeping a secret, it was just something they'd avoided explaining. How did one tell their children that, had rules been followed, they wouldn't exist? What a thing to tell a child.

"Who actually reads _Hogwarts: A History_?" Severus asked after the silence had rung for a moment following the flaming disappearance of the Howler.

"I do," Hermione said, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her forehead.

"And he _is_ your son," Severus said.

"Do you think this is funny?" she asked, smacking her palm on the arm rest of her chair and glaring at him.

"I think he's handling it very well," Severus said evenly (which infuriated her because he was supposed to be the one with the temper, but it had never been so when their children were involved).

"Do you?" she bit out around grinding teeth.

"I do. He's asked to meet us. He's giving us a chance to explain."

" _How_ do we explain it to him?"

"He's old enough to understand."

"You want to tell a fourteen-year-old that we just couldn't keep our hands off each other?"

"And you're welcome for your existence, boy," Severus said, quirking a grin at her. It was a charming grin, damn him.


	48. Hermione, Sept 2020

Hermione smoothed her skirt over her knees again before settling her hands in her lap. It had been six hours since they had filed their marriage license and the birth certificates with the board supervising the Marriage Act. It would be maybe a day, two days, before the press got hold of it. Theirs would go on the front page, not the third with the rest of the list.

Forgetting the poise she'd been attempting to maintain, Hermione pressed her fingertips to one of her eyebrows. Her hand was shaking, which was an annoyance. It was an old symptom of nerves that hadn't presented itself since the months following the war. Back when people, the press, had been following her around and she'd still been having nightmares.

"Forgive me, Mrs. Prince, I was—Hermione," Flitwick said, coming to a full stop just inside the door.

"Hello, Professor. I'm sorry to come so late."

"What's happening?"

"The Marriage Act."

"Nimue. You're Severus's wife."

"Yes."

"But Simon is…"

"Yes."

Flitwick sat down in the other visitors' chair.

"You were… You couldn't have been eighteen. _You would've been his student_."

"His apprentice," Hermione said.

Flitwick lurched to his feet and began to pace.

"What were you thinking?" he finally asked.

Hermione snorted. "We really weren't." She hated how bitter she sounded, so she took a deep breath. "We were selfish," she said. When Flitwick sat down again, Hermione continued, "I knew by the time we'd finished putting the school back together that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. He wanted to open an apothecary; I wanted to go into potions." She laughed, but it came out a snort. "It was part of my five-year plan."

Flitwick relaxed fractionally from his rigid posture.

"We weren't six months into the apprenticeship when I—when we realized…" Hermione cut herself off and sat back, crossing her legs. "Like I said. We were selfish. We should've ended the apprenticeship, but…"

"You wanted it all."

"Yes." Hermione sighed. "We were married before the apprenticeship ended. A Muggle wedding with Muggle paperwork. Simon and Stella were born in a Muggle hospital." She sighed again. "It was inevitable that it would come out. We were hoping it wouldn't be until the children were out of school, though. Severus and I can handle the attention; we didn't want the children to have to live in that fishbowl for as long as we could help it."

"You could've made a production of it now. Thrown yourselves a big wedding."

"I can't have more children."

"Oh, Hermione." Flitwick reached out and patted her knee gently.

"Even if we made a big deal of it, we still wouldn't be able to fulfill the parameters of the Act," she said, pressing on. "And even if it could work, it wouldn't be fair to the children. Any of them."

"What will you do?" Flitwick asked.

"It will take a month or so, but the Potioneers' Guild will be obligated to strip Severus and I of our masteries pending investigation. I will be dismissed at the Ministry. We knew it was coming, so Severus has already stepped back from the shop and hired other brewers." Hermione pressed her fingertips into her eyebrow again. "We are—prepared." She sat up again, holding her hands up helplessly before flapping them down against the armrests and looking at Flitwick. "If there is such a thing."

It had been easier to think about when none of it was happening, like before the Ministry had fallen. It had been so easy to read and plan and pack, and then the world had fallen apart and it had been horrible. This was like that. It had been almost too easy to plan it out, Severus's preparation at the apothecary, her shoring up her old reports for whoever would have to go through and determine if she'd botched them by sleeping with her master instead of studying for her accreditation. The look on the clerk's face when they'd filed their paperwork had made it much more real.

"Thank you for warning me."

"We wrote Simon and Stella; they won't be blindsided when it ends up in the paper."

"I will tell the other Head of House as well." He leveled a shrewd look at her. "Minerva knew, didn't she?"

"Yes. She… well. She and Severus have been close for a very long time."

"Where _is_ Severus?"

"Warding the hell out of the shop."

"It wasn't already?"

Hermione snorted. "Yes, of course." They'd been there since they'd left Hogwarts. They'd each layered protections around the shop and the living space above over the years; it was a major part of why nobody had ever really addressed the strangeness of the two of them continuing to live together so long after her apprenticeship had ended, not to mention the children. Severus had added elements whenever he got bored.

Truth be told, Severus was freaking out and his best way to deal with it was to lock everything down. He likely wouldn't be leaving her side all week. She was panicking, too, but she'd always coped best by making lists and powering through them, hence her visit to the school to reassure herself that their Head of House would look out for Simon and Stella.

"If…" Hermione cleared her throat. "If you think it would help, would you send them home?"

"Best to carry on through it, dear," Flitwick said quietly. Hermione nodded, because she _knew_ that, she just wanted to hold them close and hide them through the difficulties to come.


	49. Hermione, June 1998

Hermione ducked into the library at Grimmauld Place and made herself comfortable on the long sofa. Of all the furniture in the room, it had the most stuffing left. Normally, she would've taken whichever book struck her fancy and brought it back to her bedroom, but she was staying at Hogwarts this summer.

The Battle of Hogwarts was a month behind them, and the Order of the Phoenix was celebrating. Everybody had gathered at the Most Ancient House of Black to enjoy Mrs. Weasley's cooking and good company. The first half of the party had been pleasant; she'd been able to chat with Kingsley, George, and Fleur. She and Ron had even had a civilized conversation; she'd only run for the library when Ron had left to go visit Lavender at St. Mungo's.

The second half of the party had gotten a bit awkward for her. The Order had paired off, more or less, and she'd been left without a partner. Nobody knew she and Snape were soul mates, which made it difficult to introduce the idea of them as a couple.

The door cracked open again, and she prepared to hex whichever amorous couple had thought it was a good idea to stumble into her haven of books. But it was only Snape.

"Oh, it's just you," she said, then bit her lip to hide her smile. He'd twitched, surprised anybody was in the library.

"Why don't you have any wards on the door?" he asked, frowning critically first at her and then the door. "You _want_ company from these people?"

"I only just sat down," she said, turning her wand to cast a Cushioning Charm on the horrible cushion before resituating herself more comfortably. "But be my guest. Your wards will keep them out better than mine, anyway."

"I'm sure only because I'm a bit more blunt about it," he said, drawing his wand over the door and then tapping the doorknob.

"If by 'blunt' you mean 'physically painful,' then you're absolutely right."

He rolled his eyes but didn't argue the point. In a moment, he had his own book and a Cushioning Charm on the opposite end of the sofa. They passed an hour in perfect peace, the celebrating Order kept at bay by his wards.

Hermione looked up at the end of her chapter and blushed. Without realizing it, she'd ended up with her feet in Snape's lap. Her shoes were discarded on the rug, and he was idly rubbing her arch through her fuzzy socks. It was… intimate.

A chapter later, she realized they'd both shifted around on the sofa. She was practically in his lap, leaning against his side as she was. He had an arm around her, seeming more for the convenience of supporting his book than for _holding_ her. She felt surrounded by him, though. It was pleasant.

She didn't make it through the chapter after that. She shifted and realized she was on his lap, and he (or at least certain parts of him) liked that she was on his lap. He seemed to realize that they'd moved again, too, because he froze and looked at her. She looked back, not sure if she should say something, or…

He moved slowly, his expression giving away nothing. His hand moved from the book in his lap to her hip, then her side, and then his thumb brushed against the underside of her breast. She sucked in a breath and could practically feel her eyes dilate. He smirked at her, touching her more deliberately.

She kissed him. He responded by palming her breast, squeezing gently as he kissed her back. It was wonderful.

Blissful minutes passed. Their books were abandoned so that their hands could find bare flesh. He wore too many buttons to make it easy for her to find his skin, but her own jumper was wonderfully quick to take off. It didn't take him long at all to have her topless, and to distract her from the buttons by sucking one of her nipples into his mouth.

Hermione pressed into him, hands tangling in his hair. His tongue was…

" _Oh_ ," she moaned, moving so that she straddled him and could arch up properly into his mouth.

He put one hand on her back, holding her to his mouth, and the other hand slid along her hip and then beneath her jeans. At some point, he'd unbuttoned them. His thumb went beneath the elastic of her panties, between her labia, and then pressed down against her clitoris. She gasped.

"Oh, _God_."

He smirked against her breast. His hand turned, thumb moving off her clitoris. She almost pulled away, but then she felt a finger at her entrance, and then inside. Then a second finger inside, and his thumb back on her clitoris. She whimpered, her hands moving to his shoulders so she could hold onto something.

His fingers curled within her, teasing along her walls, his thumb never letting up. He lifted his head from her breast and stared into her eyes. If he'd tried to use Legilimency on her, she wouldn't have been able to stop him, wouldn't have even tried…

She grabbed his wrist, holding his hand steady as she began to rock against him. His fingers never stopped moving. His smirk was wicked.

She came with a hiss—she'd begun to say his name, but couldn't decide on "Snape" or "Severus." He kissed the scar on her throat, identical to the scar on his.

"Off," she finally managed to say, pulling at his coat. "Take it off."

Instead of doing as she asked, he drew his fingers out of her and brought them to his lips. She could feel herself getting wet all over again even as her walls continued to thrum from her orgasm; he licked his fingers clean.

"S-Severus," she said, deciding there was no way she was going to call him by his surname after all that. It seemed to be what he'd needed; he almost threw her down on the sofa next to him and peeled her jeans and panties off her legs. She yanked her socks off while he stood and disrobed.

Lavender and Parvati (and the magazines they had always left lying around) said the size didn't really matter, but she had a feeling Severus had never given much thought to what mattered and what didn't so far as his manhood was concerned. She didn't have time to be intimidated by the thought of him, of his huge… He was inside her. She watched, sucking in a huge gasp of air, as his cock disappeared into her, stretching her, sliding deeper.

" _Oh_ …"

Nirvana. Or something. She couldn't think of words. It was… Would it be cliché to say that it felt like completion to have him inside of her? Like he was meant to be in there? Like he'd filled her up properly for the first time in her existence?

His sharp hip bones were flush with hers, his cock hard and thick inside her, pulsing. He didn't move. His eyes were closed, his breathing as ragged as hers.

And then he moved. She dropped her leg down so that her foot was flat against the floor, and he leaned up over her so that he could grip the arm rest above her head. He grunted like an animal, the noise mingling with her keening moans.

She screamed when she came the second time, hardly sparing a thought to wonder if he'd thought to put a Silencing Charm on the room. Because she certainly hadn't.

He roared. She hadn't even known human beings could actually do that.

He collapsed on her, the movement driving his cock deep into her. She could still feel him twitching, spurting inside of her. She wrapped her arms around him and cradled him to her, held onto him in her afterglow.

She drifted off to sleep, only half waking when he repositioned them so that she was on top. He draped his frock coat over the pair of them, and she went back to sleep with her head on his chest.

When she woke, he was snoring softly and it was remarkably endearing. She'd spent enough time in the tent with the boys to know that snoring was usually obnoxious—Ron's nose whistled constantly, occasionally interrupted by huge, snorting grumbles. Harry sort of wheezed and wuffed. Severus had a soothing, rolling sort of snore.


	50. Hermione, June '96

They'd taken her by Floo, which seemed like a horrible, horrible idea. Maybe Apparation would've been worse, she really didn't know; all she did know what that she could still see fiery green swirls in her peripheral vision.

She was going to be sick. It was going to hurt so badly…

She must've passed out. When she woke, her heart was _racing_. She could actually feel it thumping away in her chest like a mad thing trying to escape her ribs.

It actually might make a good attempt at it, too. She felt like her chest was splayed open for the escaping-from. Everything felt raw there. She half tried to bring her arms up and close over the front, but somebody was holding her down.

Hermione forced her eyes open. The green was still there, but not as much. It was more a hint of green. Like a shimmery reflection from behind her. A bad effect from an amateur theater production.

Professor Snape stood over her. He was splattered in blood and it was probably hers.

She was very, very cold; the only warm spot on her whole body was just beneath the pain on her chest where his hand rested under her ribs. He was frozen, focused. Even his wand had her blood on it.

She probably wasn't going to die if he was there to save her.


	51. Simon, September 2020

The murmur of excited conversation went absolutely silent when Simon walked into the Great Hall.

"Papers must've come early today," Stella whispered as she came up beside him. "Chins up, then, I suppose."

"Here we go."

It was utterly and completely unfair. And that wasn't just teenaged angst, either. They were catching their parents' shit. Their very existence was a scandal, which was hardly their own fault.

"Can I hate them just a little bit?" Simon asked under his breath. Stella chuffed a laugh.

"Mum and Dad, or everybody else?"

Simon stopped to think about it, and Stella rolled her eyes at him.

They sat down together in the middle of the Ravenclaw table. They didn't usually sit together. It wasn't that they sat apart, but it wasn't usually right next to each other either. They were a year apart; they had different friends and different schedules.

The whispers started up as they passed along the benches. He hated it. People talking about him. People _whispering_.

"You look exactly like Dad when you frown like that," Stella whispered, handing him a piece of toast. He frowned at her some more, but it just made her smile.

"Well you look exactly like Mum when you smile."

"I know."

Simon smeared raspberry jam on his toast, then muttered, "And now everybody else knows it, too."

Everybody around them had a copy of the morning's _Prophet_. Their parents were on the front page. Not a recent photo by any means. They didn't even look like a couple in it. It was from right after the war, the trials. Mum was dressed for court, and Dad was in his old black teaching robes. They were in the atrium at the Ministry, just standing and talking.

"They could've picked a better picture," Stella observed, picking up a copy of the paper that had been abandoned on the table.

"You're going to read that shit?"

"How else do you propose to find out what they're saying about us?"

"I'm sure everybody will love to tell us about it."

Stella snorted and stole the toast he'd only managed to get one bite of. He was used to that—just because they didn't sit next to each other during meals at school didn't mean they didn't eat nearly every meal with each other at home. He served himself hot porridge and added enough honey so that she wouldn't be inclined to steal that away, too.


	52. Severus, July 2002

She was pregnant and he was over the moon. Fatherhood had never been something he'd imagined for himself, but now that it was really happening… He was ecstatic.

It was horrible timing. She had less than a month left of her apprenticeship. If it had happened any later, they might've been able to pass it off as a premature birth. But it hadn't and they couldn't, so they wouldn't.

Their plan to marry was shot now, too.

Technically, they were already married. They'd had a Muggle wedding years ago, early in her apprenticeship. They'd wanted it, and they'd thought it would help her parents accept them. (It hadn't.) The plan had always been to put on a show of falling for each other after the apprenticeship and eventually filing a marriage license with the Ministry of Magic. If they did that now, though, if would nullify her Mastery and probably his as well.


	53. Hermione, December 2019

Arriving home felt awfully… final. They'd been in Louisiana for a few weeks on a voodoo project, her bringing Severus along as a Dark Magic expert. It wasn't unusual for the Department to ask him to consult, but this had probably been the last time. It had gone well, they'd resolved the issue, but it was the sort of project that wasn't likely to come up again until after they'd had to file their marriage license. And then neither of them would be qualified for it.

Bollocks. She was _not_ going to cry.

Severus put his hand on her waist, just for a moment. A brief, comforting gesture. Then he moved deeper into the flat to put away his travel things.

It was these moments of normalcy that were doing her in.


	54. Severus, June '96

While Severus had needed several years and more than several stiff drinks to come around to the idea of having a soul mate, Granger accepted it in stride. (Of course she did.)

He'd brought her a fresh batch of potions toward the end of her stay in the hospital wing following that little excursion to the Department of Mysteries, and she'd had Romanov's _Ways of the Heart_ with her—the most reliable tome he'd found on the subject, and also the most disturbing since the wizard who'd written it had dissected at least a dozen couples as "research" for the book, and the publishers had never been sure if they'd been dead already or if they'd been murdered for the sake of the project.

"Am I completely insane?" she'd asked.

Instead of trying to throw her off (or simply not answering), he'd said, "Hardly."


	55. Hermione, February 2021

The Guild had placed them both on official suspension and left at that. For months.

They were deliberating. Every time she petitioned for a hearing, every formal complaint she filed, received the same answer: The Guild was deliberating, and they appreciated her patience.

"Ten minutes, Hermione," Severus called up from the shop. He'd closed it for the day and spent the entirety of the morning combing the premises for monitoring charms. He'd found more than a few.

Hermione took one last look around the flat, making sure everything was tidy, and then put the kettle on. Usually, making tea was soothing. Severus kept a good stock of tea, provided by Pomona Sprout—it had always been a hobby of hers to mix new blends, and when Severus had opened the Cauldron and Kettle he'd offered to sell her teas as well. It was where the 'Kettle' part came from. It had become Pomona's retirement project.

"Now who's woolgathering?" Severus asked, joining her in the kitchen and taking the screaming kettle off the stovetop.

The old joke made her smile, at least.

"What do you think they want?" she asked, not for the first time. It was unprecedented, and it was driving her mad.

"We will know in—" He checked the clock. "—five minutes."

Hermione nodded grimly and set the tea things out on the low table in the living room. In the small eternity that followed, Hermione stood by the sofa and wrung her hands.

She'd never had that habit before her children had begun at Hogwarts, not really. When they'd been away and she hadn't been able to fuss over them, she'd wrung her hands instead. It drove Severus mad.

"Hermione," Severus said, putting his hand over hers and squeezing just enough so that she stopped fidgeting.

"I hate this," Hermione said, turning her hands in his so that she could hold onto him. It was more soothing than wringing her hands, anyway. "Are you sure we shouldn't have brought the children home?"

"What, for the pity vote?" Severus asked.

"Stop trying to make me laugh," she said more sharply than he deserved.

"The children are better at school. They're with their friends, and they have the protection of the wards."

"Don't you dare go downstairs and check for more bugs."

Severus frowned, and he surely had a quippy comeback on the tip of his tongue, but they were interrupted by a knock on the door below. Hermione jerked her hands from his purely out of habit, then scowled at herself.

"I'll go let them up, shall I?" Severus asked, kissing her on the forehead and stepping away. She looked around the room, wondering if she'd missed anything.

"Yes," she said, looking around the room, wondering if she'd missed anything. "I'll just—"

"No. No you won't," he said. "Stop fussing. Go and let them up, and I will fetch the biscuits."

"I wasn't going to put biscuits out," Hermione said, scowling at him. "They've made us wait _months_. They don't get biscuits."

Severus smirked at her in that knowing way of his, and she rolled at her eyes before making her way downstairs. There was just one Board member from the Guild, and not even the Chair. It was Aldous Crouch, a Potions Master just a decade with the Guild and only a few months on the Board. Hermione couldn't decide if she was insulted or relieved. If they were about to be dismissed from the Guild, she was certainly insulted. But if it was anything else, it couldn't be that bad if they'd sent such a junior member of the Board.

"Master Crouch," Hermione said, holding the door open for him.

"Mrs. Snape."

Without another word, she led the way through the shop and up to the flat.

Severus stood at the center of the room, arms crossed, for all the world looking exactly as he had at the beginning of a Potions lesson. (After his dramatic entrance, of course.)

"Master Crouch," Severus said, bitingly sarcastic. "Tea?"

"No. Thank you."

Hermione frowned, if only because she'd spent the last hour fretting about the tea.

"Will you sit?" Hermione asked.

"I won't be staying long," Crouch said, taking a pair of scrolls out of his robe pocket and holding them out to each of them. "I am merely delivering the Board's decision."

Hermione snatched the scroll from him, tapping it with her wand to unseal it. There was a familiar tug at the place between her shoulder blades that came with opening a legally binding document, and she scowled anew.

"Dismissed?" Severus asked, raising an eyebrow. Hermione's stomach plummeted and her hands clenched around her scroll, eyes flying to Severus before she'd even read her own scroll.

" _Dismissed_ ," she hissed.

"They'd dismissed the suit against me," he said, as if he hadn't just given her a heart attack with a single word. "Dismissed on a technicality. My variant on Veritaserum that they shouldn't have been using."

She smiled at him. She wanted to jump around, whoop like a kid, but she couldn't seem to move. She was frozen with relief, which was a perfectly absurd reaction, really. Even if they'd decided to revoke her Mastery, they'd have an income. Their savings would cover the Hogwarts fees for the time the children had left at school, but after that…

Her current project didn't exactly come with regular wages. Not yet, anyway.

"Hermione, breathe," Severus said. He'd rolled his scroll up again and stashed it somewhere on his person. She frowned at him, angry that he could be so calm in the face of it all.

He raised an eyebrow at her, nodding at the scroll in her hand. She would've handed it over to him to read for her, but it was bewitched. Legally binding and all that. She had to be the one to read it.

"I have to sit the exam?"

"Yes," Crouch said, grinning like an idiot. Severus raised an eyebrow, his own silent way of encouraging her to elaborate.

"My full credentials will be reinstated if I can match or surpass my previous scores on the written and practical Mastery exam."

Severus laughed out loud.

"The Guild received the copy of your marriage license from the Ministry," Crouch said, still grinning stupidly. "It confirmed that you are, indeed, a soul pair. By the letter of the law, your interactions can't be qualified as improper, no matter how _irregular_ it all may be."

"And are they addressing any of the suits I've filed?" Hermione asked, temper flaring now that the danger was mostly past. She didn't have to be nice to him when she had the official means of recourse in writing. "Severus hasn't been able to work. My employment was terminated. And there's been no income from royalties with the official hold on our patented potions."

"The hold has been lifted, so you will both begin to receive royalties due you again. And you can return to brewing for your shop once again, of course," Crouch said, looking to Severus before he returned his attention to Hermione. "If you pass your exams—and nobody has any doubt that you will—your credentials will be fully reinstated."

"I was _sacked_ ," she repeated.

"There will be no recompense made for lost wages or… otherwise," Crouch said uncomfortably, likely regurgitating some statement fed to him by more senior Board members. "You did wrong, after all."

"Did we?" Hermione asked sweetly. "You just affirmed that, by the letter of the law, we did no such thing."

"Please, Mrs.—Hermione." Crouch looked constipated. And gassy. "You know the Guild doesn't have any sway with the Ministry as far as employment or compensation goes. They followed their policy; we followed ours."

"What about Subsection M under Article 17?"

Crouch chewed his lip, looking between the two of them. He obviously didn't know the Guild's charter even half as well as Hermione did. (Severus didn't either, but he was much better at pretending to know what she was talking about in front of people.)

"Would you like to talk to Billings?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "I think I'd better talk to Billings."


	56. September 1991

At eleven, when Hermione Granger first laid eyes on him, she would've believed anything. Love at first sight? Sure. Why not? _Magic_ was real; _anything_ was possible. But there had been so much going on, and she'd been so young, and she hadn't realized that the two hard thumps of her heart meant anything beyond the rest of the excitement.

At thirty-one, when Severus Snape first laid eyes on her, he didn't believe it. He knew it was possible, he'd read the books. Hell, he'd met at least three couples who were lucky enough to have found their soul mates, to have felt those telltale thumps, "love at first sight." He vowed to keep it to himself; he vowed she would never know. She was Muggleborn, after all; she wouldn't already have the notion of it in her head. And she was bloody _eleven_.


	57. Percy, October 2021

Percy sat back in his chair, pleased with himself and rightly so. A year ago, almost to the day, the headline had been _Granger Sacked!_ or something like that. Today, Hermione was the headline again, though this time it said _Minister to Address Population Crisis at Int'l Confederation Conference_.

He couldn't take full credit for her rapid rise, of course. He'd given her the tools he'd had to hand, and she'd put them to better use than he'd ever been able.

First, there had been the well-publicized embarrassment within the Guild of Potioneers. The Guild had first dismissed the charges of misconduct, etc., from Snape from some technicality or other (which had Hermione written all over it). Then, they'd very publicly had to award her back-pay for getting her sacked per Ministry policy and then leaving her in limbo awaiting their ruling on her qualifications. (The Quibbler had written a hilarious piece about Nargle infestation of the Guild's premises that his mum had clipped and hung below the family clock.) She'd kept herself in the public eye when she went in to retake her exams, too, and the results had been published the way the N.E.W.T. scores had been back when it was just the four returning seventh years at Hogwarts.

She might've fallen out of notice again if it hadn't been for the complaints that had begun piling up at the Aurory at that point. Snape's shop, the Cauldron and Kettle, had always had more wards than necessary on it, but nobody had questioned it, first and foremost because there was a ward preventing them from paying the wards any mind. But the public announcement of their marriage had tripped something up within the magic, and the obscuring enchantments and the fuzzy after-effects had been noticed. And people were upset. If Harry hadn't been Head Auror, she might've lost her chance. But, again, she was lucky.

(Percy, himself, noted he'd been affected by those wards, but only in retrospect. Who _wouldn't_ have put it all together, after all, if left to their own devices? It wasn't so difficult to deduce, what with the children so obviously taking after the both of them. He was only glad that he'd been among the select few to be let in on the secret over the years—otherwise they would've had Words, and he certainly wouldn't have given her the leverage she needed.)

Hermione had used the public notice as a platform to denounce the Marriage Law. Released from her Ministerial contracts, she'd been able to point people in direction of the solid facts (if not able to spell them out directly, due to the lingering nondisclosure clauses). There was a petition to repeal the Marriage Law, citing alternative means in place in other countries operating under the same mandate from the International Confederation of Wizards.

Percy had been more than happy to give interview after interview explaining, at length, the many and varied options he'd presented to the Minister and Wizengamot. (The Minister and most members of the Wizengamot had either not been available for comment, or had outright declined.) He'd presented half a dozen methods of compliance in the beginning, but had even more to talk on since the mandates had been in effect and he now had real-world examples of what other countries were trying.

Between Percy, his connections (not the least of which being a brother-in-law as the Head Auror and a pair of brothers more than happy to chat within easy hearing of the impressionable youth swarming all over their shops), and Hermione's own influence, it had been surprisingly easy to unseat the Minister for having taken things to such extremes. Lives had been complicated, ruined even. Policies had been enacted that did not, in fact, increase the birthrate but had shown a marked rise in suicides among those caught in the new law.

Hermione had personally written an incentives-based plan of action, and the Wizengamot had adopted it almost as quickly as it had elected her Minister of Magic.

Percy had always thought she'd be rather good for the position.

"You are a crafty devil, Ambassador Weasley," Hermione said, shaking her head at him from his doorway. "You planned this from the beginning, didn't you?"

"From the beginning, no," he said, standing and smoothing his robes into place. She was due to address the Confederation in an hour, and he, as the Senior Ambassador, would be on stage with her. "You'll remember I was in Gryffindor. We can hardly plan anything out that far."

"Everybody always says they Sort too soon," she said.

She held out a battered old watering can, and he grabbed the nearest bit of it. The Portkey activated, and in a moment they were in the antechamber with the rumble of the assembled Confederation on the other side of the door. Her squad of Hit Wizards moved in for their usual check, making sure that the Minister was alright and hadn't been hexed, replaced by a Polyjuiced lookalike, or otherwise tampered with in transit. Hermione bore the security sweep with her customary annoyed patience.

"I'm sure you'd know better about that sort of thing than I would," Percy said, watching as the Hit Wizards retook their security positions around the room as she prepared to go out onto the main floor to give her speech. "You married a former headmaster, after all."

"Quite so," she said, smirking at him.

"After you, Minister Granger-Snape."

* * *

A/N: And that's it. If you want to read it all in order, it should be something along the lines of: 1, 56, 5, 12, 32, 16, 25, 28, 4, 9, 50, 19, 30, 54, 26, 31, 39, 13, 49, 27, 43, 10, 20, 6, 29, 14, 7, 45, 36, 33, 21, 23, 41, 52, 34, 38, 17, 3, 15, 47, 2, 8, 18, 22, 24, 53, 42, 40, 37, 48, 46, 51, 11, 35, 44, 55, 57. I think it's much more fun all jumbled up, though :)


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